LoveReading Says
Telling the gripping tale of a Berlin-based writer’s appropriation of a stranger’s story, Chris Power’s A Lonely Man misdirects and seduces with a magician’s sleight of hand. Readers will teeter on the very edge of their seats as they - and the protagonist - are lured into a snare of distrust, with the novel simmering to an entirely unexpected end.
Robert has moved from London to Berlin with his wife and two young daughters. While struggling to find his creative mojo, he meets drunk, charismatic, nervy Patrick. Patrick was ghost-writing a no-holds-barred book on behalf of an exiled Russian oligarch who was recently found hanged. Patrick believes it was murder, that he’s now being followed.
Robert notes early on that “he had never known when to stop” and, true to form, despite deciding he’d only meet Patrick for one drink, it doesn’t stop there. Beers, whiskeys, and more for the road flow as Patricks explains how he met the mega-rich oligarch and the high-level secrets his book was due to expose. Though Robert he felt “like he had spent the evening walking into some kind of trap” and he’s not sure if it’s true, Patrick’s story has slithered under his skin and he secretly sets about transforming it into a novel.
Highly recommend for readers who like their thrillers laced with chilling intrigue, the novel operates as a kind of puzzle, raising questions around the ownership of stories, and uncertainty planted with elegant aplomb.
Joanne Owen
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A Lonely Man Synopsis
"A Lonely Man is a superb suspense novel, imbued with moral and narrative complexity and an omnipresent low cloud cover of dread." --The Washington Post
Two British men, both writers, meet by chance in Berlin. Robert is trying and failing to finish his next book while balancing his responsibilities as a husband and a father. Patrick, a recent arrival in the city, is secretive about his past, but eventually reveals that he has been ghostwriting the autobiography of a Russian oligarch. The oligarch has turned up dead, and Patrick claims to be a hunted man himself.
Although Robert doubts the truth of Patrick's story, it fascinates him, and he thinks it might hold the key to his own foundering novel. Working to gain the other man's trust, Robert draws out the details of Patrick's past while ensnaring himself ever more tightly in what might be either a fantasist's creation or a lethal international plot.
Through an elegant existential game of cat and mouse, Chris Power's A Lonely Man depicts an attempt to create art at the cost of empathy. Robert must decide what is his for the taking--and whether some stories are too dangerous to tell.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781250849090 |
| Publication date: |
3rd May 2022 |
| Author: |
Chris Power |
| Publisher: |
Picador USA |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
320 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Thriller and Suspense
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| Other Genres: |
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| Recommendations: |
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Chris Power Press Reviews
'A remarkable debut; an accomplished and intricately plotted story.'-JON McGREGOR
'A Lonely Man is a delicate snare of a novel.'-BRANDON TAYLOR
'A thrilling, unnerving novel. a page-turner with exacting syntax and emotional heft.'-CATHERINE LACEY
'Impressively deft. A Lonely Man is a tense and taut work.'-BENJAMIN MYERS
About Chris Power
Chris Power is the former editor of leading European surf magazine Carve. He has written and edited several books about surfing including Surf Travel: The Complete Guide, The Surfing Tribe and Shooting The Curl.
Author photo © Rachel Power
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