About this ebook
From early in the career of acclaimed international bestselling author Campbell Armstrong comes a dark, menacing, Kafkaesque thriller
Berg comes to the village to begin a new job and a new life far from the oppression of his mother. From the start, he feels ill at ease. His landlady is a widow whose husband died after eating poisoned mushrooms, and who cooks the foulest stew he has ever tasted. Her daughter, Monika, is a flirt who seems intent on undermining Berg’s fragile confidence. His job is a mystery of paper-pushing and classified documents, none of which he is allowed to understand. As the days go by, he feels a growing sense of dread. The town is closing in for the kill.
While Berg is sleeping, Monika is raped and left near death on the first floor of her house. She accuses Berg of the crime, drawing him into a labyrinth of bureaucratic justice from which insanity may be the only escape.
Berg comes to the village to begin a new job and a new life far from the oppression of his mother. From the start, he feels ill at ease. His landlady is a widow whose husband died after eating poisoned mushrooms, and who cooks the foulest stew he has ever tasted. Her daughter, Monika, is a flirt who seems intent on undermining Berg’s fragile confidence. His job is a mystery of paper-pushing and classified documents, none of which he is allowed to understand. As the days go by, he feels a growing sense of dread. The town is closing in for the kill.
While Berg is sleeping, Monika is raped and left near death on the first floor of her house. She accuses Berg of the crime, drawing him into a labyrinth of bureaucratic justice from which insanity may be the only escape.
About the author
Campbell Armstrong (1944–2013) was an international bestselling author best known for his thriller series featuring British counterterrorism agent Frank Pagan, and his quartet of Glasgow Novels, featuring detective Lou Perlman. Two of these, White Rage and Butcher, were nominated for France’s Prix du Polar. Armstrong’s novels Assassins & Victims and The Punctual Rape won Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Awards.
Born in Glasgow and educated at the University of Sussex, Armstrong worked as a book editor in London and taught creative writing at universities in the United States.
Born in Glasgow and educated at the University of Sussex, Armstrong worked as a book editor in London and taught creative writing at universities in the United States.
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