Toploader is an occasionally funny but ultimately flawed satire of American imperialism written very much in the spirit of Carl Hiaasen. What it takes from Hiaasen is the elaborate comic contraption of a plot driven by a host of somewhat cartoonish characters working at cross purposes and leading to calamitous results. In place of Hiaasen’s Florida setting, however, the novel takes place in a generic imperial outpost, with tanks and drones patrolling an Embargoed Zone (known as The Easy) full of suspected terrorists.

One thinks of Iraq, but O’Loughlin, a Toronto-born Irishman whose previous novel, Not Untrue and Not Unkind, was nominated for the 2009 Man Booker Prize, refuses to be specific, and indeed flattens out (or “redacts”) any of the country’s identifiable features. Religion is never mentioned, and all of the natives speak perfect English. This lack of specificity has the effect of watering down the satirical targets. We learn that life in an occupied territory is hard, and that the American military machine is almost infinitely incompetent and corrupt, as well as arrogant and all-powerful, but this is not breaking news.

The plot is an intricate comedy of highly improbable errors revolving around an American-made washing machine (the toploader of the title) that has disappeared in the Easy. Various people want to get their hands on the appliance, including some high-ranking American officers, a snoopy but stupid journalist, a local criminal type, and a teenage girl named Flora.

There are more miscues in O’Loughlin’s execution than in the plot. Despite everyone speaking English, the dialogue sounds odd and unnatural, in part because it is forced to clumsily convey straightforward exposition, but also because it reflects some perverse authorial ideas about how people speak in the 21st century. For example, several unlikely characters – including the main villain, a military man – are overly fond of saying, “Oh, dear.” Worse, with a book like this the arrangement of elements is everything, and it is here that O’Loughlin slips most egregiously. There are too many narrative threads left hanging, plot points that are unexplained, and accidents that occur just to keep things moving along.

This is a shame because there are some fine moments, and one feels for Flora’s predicament in The Easy, a hellish place she can’t stay in and yet can’t manage to escape. Given O’Loughlin’s handling of the material, the book has to be considered little more than a very light, at times slapstick, comedy – which is an odd way to address the serious issues within it.