Featured on The Book Show on Sky Arts on 8 March 2012.
A thrilling, plot-twisting new novel set in Europe during the first world war, from the bestselling author of Any Human Heart, Restless and Ordinary Thunderstorms.
Vienna, 1913. Lysander Rief, a young English actor in town seeking psychotherapy for a troubling ailment, becomes caught up in a feverish affair with a beautiful, enigmatic woman. When she presses rape charges, however, he is mystified. Only a carefully plotted escape-with the help of two mysterious British diplomats-saves him from trial. The frenzied getaway sets off a chain of events that dismantles Rief 's life. He returns to London, hoping to banish from memory his traumatic ordeals abroad, but soon the men who helped coordinate his escape recruit him to carry out the murder of a complete stranger. His lover from Vienna arrives nonchalantly at a party, ready to resume their liaison, and before he can stop to consider where these events are leading, Rief finds himself on the trail of a traitor-a man whose bizarre connection to his own family proves a cruel twist of fate. Waiting for Sunrise is more than a page-turning thriller-it's a riveting investigation of the limits of loyalty, the power of deception and the unpredictable events that can change the course of a person's life.
'Boyd is English fiction's master storyteller' Independent
'[Boyd] has probably written more truly classic books than any of his contemporaries' Sunday Telegraph
'A novel by William Boyd carries its own recommendation. To read one of his novels is like stepping into an expertly made and rather expensive motor vehicle' Philip Hensher, Daily Telegraph
'One of our top-notch novelists' The Times
Author
About William Boyd
William Boyd is the author of eleven novels including A Good Man in Africa, winner of the Whitbread Award and the Somerset Maugham Award; An Ice-Cream War, winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Brazzaville Beach, winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize; Any Human Heart, winner of the Prix Jean Monnet and adapted into a Channel 4 drama; Restless, winner of the Costa Novel of the Year, the Yorkshire Post Novel of the Year and a Richard & Judy selection; Ordinary Thunderstorms and, most recently, the Sunday Times bestseller, Waiting for Sunrise. William Boyd lives in London and France.
