[1][2] The Laughing Monsters is set largely in the African countries of Sierra Leone, Congo and Uganda in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide of the 1990s, conflicts which Johnson witnessed and reported on as a journalist.
Nair (who goes by his last name) hopes to reestablish their lucrative partnership - and to collect information on Michael for Nato Intelligence Interoperability Architecture (NIIA).
At a NIIA safehouse, Nair is informed that Michael is AWOL from US special forces in the Congo, operating against the Lord's Resistance Army.
Nair is held in detention, and undergoes days of verbal interrogation under "underantiterrorism" protocols by NIIA personnel, who wish to know Michael's location.
Though the shifts are disconcerting, critic Michael Mewshaw notes that "the power of Johnson's prose and the acuity of his eye" provides an acute portrayal of the conditions on the ground in urban and rural Africa, exceeding "almost any journalistic account.
"[9] The Laughing Monsters has elicited comparisons and contrasts Johnson with authors Graham Greene, Robert Stone and John le Carré.
Literary critic Mark Lawson writes: "The Laughing Monsters, especially in its Sierra Leone sections, walks in the steps of The Heart of the Matter, which was inspired by Greene's experience of Freetown, where Johnson's novel begins and ends.
"[11] Critic Carol Memmott writes: "Comparisons inevitably will be made to the Africa-set espionage novels of Graham Greene and John le Carré, but…Johnson tells his stories in his own way, adjusting the genre's formula to suit his own needs.
By eschewing the heroism, grandeur, and moral clarity of the traditional war novel and replacing it with a Kafkaesque farce where madness is the only sane option...[16]Critic Eileen Battersby points out that "the narrative is light years removed from Graham Greene and John le Carré...The Laughing Monsters is a slap happy variation of Catch-22.
"[18] The thematic elements of The Laughing Monsters is informed by the devastation that imperialism has inflicted on the African continent and the demoralization of those operatives who are tasked with effecting it.
Critic Battersby notes that Johnson makes "a serious moral point about the way in which international spies have become the most recent colonialists in the ongoing rape of Africa.
"[19] Journalist Carol Memmott writes: Johnson vibrantly illustrates the poverty, sickness and hopelessness of Africa's indigent population.
Monumental environmental problems, due to the pillaging of natural resources by governments and entrepreneurs, add another grim layer of darkness to Johnson's story.
"[20]Critic Michael Mewshaw observes "the power of Johnson's prose and the acuity of his eye [that] manages to convey a more convincing portrait of amoral intelligence agents and the havoc they wreak than almost any journalistic account of Third World skullduggery.
At one point, when captured by the Congolese Army, Roland, almost with a sigh of relief, admits that he has been taken by "people who would either bring order to my affairs in a prison or murder me and solve my life.
"[22]Sherez adds: "Roland Nair is an archetypal Johnson protagonist: passive, suicidal, gripped by delirium and religious yearnings.