A feel-good romantic epic with a life-affirming moral ‘message’, One Big Damn Puzzler is a book that might have been written with a future starring role for Tom Hanks in mind. With its blend of knockabout humour and light social comment, its larger-than-life supporting cast and its dependable if insipid lead, John Harding’s mammoth new novel at times resembles a treatment for the Hollywood romcom it will surely become. 

Set largely on a remote Pacific island, the book opens with the arrival of William, a naïve but well-meaning lawyer who plans to help the natives file compensation claims against America in respect of injuries caused by landmines planted by a recently departed US military garrison. Among the casualties is