‘Delicious,’ said the cannibal, ‘like chicken.’ How like chicken? Like KFC? Or coq-au-vin? Or Domino’s chicken fingers? One of the many disappointments of this unappetising offering is Richard Lloyd Parry’s failure to challenge the cannibals further on the exact texture and taste of human flesh. What’s the point of hanging out with the man-munchers of Borneo if you don’t ask the tough questions?

Oh, all right, I’m teasing. This is a fine book, the best I’ve read on the implosion of human decency that took place in Indonesia as the New Order of President Suharto collapsed in the late 1990s. Lloyd Parry was there for all the great stories. He writes sensitively and