The Dead Heart

'That dumbshit map. I'd been seduced by it. Seduced by its possibilities. That map had brought me here ...That map had been a serious mistake' The map in question is of Australia, stumbled across in a second-hand bookshop by American journalist Nick Hawthorne, en route to another dead-end hack job in Akron, Ohio. Seduced by all that wilderness, all that NOTHING, Nick decides to put his midlife crisis on hold and light out to the ultimate nowheresville - where a chance encounter throws him into a sun-baked orgy of surf, sex and swill, and a nightmare from which there is no escape. 'Douglas Kennedy might never be allowed into Australia again. This is a crazy, compulsive ultimately serious thriller and a bravura fictional debut from one of our best travel writers' Philip Kerr

“Pulls off that most difficult feat of being hilariously funny and frightening at the same time - INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAYFluent and entertaining ... a highly accomplished debut... there is an art to telling shaggy-dog stories well, with the right balance of lightness and suspense, and Kennedy shows himself a master of it. - SUNDAY TELEGRAPHHis story-telling is so deft, and the build-up so detailed and convincing, that the denouement proves to be heart-thumpingly effective - INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAYA comic triumph - TIME OUT”

'Pulls off that most difficult feat of being hilariously funny and frightening at the same time' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 'Fluent and entertaining ... a highly accomplished debut' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'His story-telling is so deft, and the build-up so detailed and convincing, that the denouement proves to be heart-thumpingly effective' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 'A comic triumph' TIME OUT

Douglas Kennedy is the author of THE BIG PICTURE, THE JOB and three travel books, BEYOND THE PYRAMIDS, IN GOD'S COUNTRY and CHASING MAMMON. Born in New York City in 1955, he lives in London with his wife and two children.

That dumbshit map. I'd been seduced by it. Seduced by its possibilities. That map had brought me here ... That map had been a serious mistake'The map in question is of Australia, stumbled across in a second-hand bookshop by American journalist Nick Hawthorne, en route to another dead-end hack job in Akron, Ohio. Seduced by all that wilderness, all that NOTHING, Nick decides to put his midlife crisis on hold and light out to the ultimate nowheresville - where a chance encounter throws him into a sun-baked orgy of surf, sex and swill, and a nightmare from which there is no escape.'Douglas Kennedy might never be allowed into Australia again. This is a crazy, compulsive ultimately serious thriller and a bravura fictional debut from one of our best travel writers' Philip Kerr

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