JAMES is a hip young pop video director whose life is going down the pan.

He is fired following a spat over artistic standards with his unscrupulous producer and a pouting pop nymphet.

To make ends meet, he takes a dead-end job as a mobile phone salesman.

Then he finds that his girlfriend is having an affair.

So when his plane is forced to land in Beirut on the way to a sales conference in Dubai, he is ready for an adventure. Especially when he meets Maya Hayek, a sexy young tour guide who is desperate to get out of Lebanon and go to college in the United States.

Bliss Street begins like any other London-set contemporary romance: so hip and cool it is lacking all heart. But Kris Kenway knows his Beirut, and the moment a troubled James sets foot in the bombed out, desperate yet somehow eternally optimistic city, the novel comes to life.

Beirut is the star of the book. It is a city of gold chain-wearing businessmen; diamond smugglers; gossiping socialites pursuing petty rivalries amongst the rubble; BMWs and Mercedes weaving through potholed streets; muezzin calls; Arab pop music; and Palestinian refugees cut off from their loved ones across the border in Israel.

A rich tapestry of life full of hope and longing in equal measure.

Against this backdrop the love affair between James and Maya flickers, falters, then kindles into life.

Yet it is Beirut that lingers in the memory, and that makes this book such a haunting and memorable read.

Updated: 09:03 Wednesday, April 14, 2004