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About the Author

Douglas Kennedy’s previous twelve novels include the critically acclaimed bestsellers The Big Picture, The Pursuit of Happiness, A Special Relationship and The Moment. He is also the author of three highly-praised travel books. The Big Picture was filmed with Romain Duris and Catherine Deneuve; The Woman in the Fifth with Ethan Hawke and Kristin Scott Thomas.

His work has been translated into twenty-two languages. In 2007 he was awarded the French decoration of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and in 2009 the inaugural Grand Prix de Figaro. Born in Manhattan in 1955, he has two children and currently divides his time between London, Paris, Berlin, Maine and New York.

Also by Douglas Kennedy

ALSO BY DOUGLAS KENNEDY

Fiction

The Dead Heart

The Big Picture

The Job

The Pursuit of Happiness

A Special Relationship

State of the Union

Temptation

The Woman in the Fifth

Leaving the World

The Moment

Five Days

The Heat of Betrayal

The Great Wide Open

Isabelle in the Afternoon

Non-fiction

Beyond the Pyramids

In God’s Country

Chasing Mammon

Dedication

for Antony Harwood my agent and friend for a mere twenty-eight years

Epigraph

‘We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.’

– Plato

one

‘WHERE WE GOIN’?’

The voice belonged to my first fare of the afternoon. I’d picked him up at one of those big nothing office buildings on Wilshire, just on the edge of Westwood. A fast ride, two miles, to another faceless office building in Century City. I looked him over in my rearview. The guy was around fifty. Bad tan suit. Bulky – around two sixty and, like me, not happy about all the fleshiness he was carrying around with him. A sweaty guy – and not just because the mercury was punching three figures with killer humidity.

‘I asked you: where we goin’?’

His tone was low-level aggressive, a time-is-money type who believes that the loudest voice in the room wins.

‘We’re going to the address you gave me,’ I said, thinking: one of the rules of this game is that you frequently pick up people who hate the lives they’re living.

‘But surely you fucking well know that going east on Wilshire at this time on a Friday –’

‘According to my GPS Wilshire Boulevard was supposed to be clear right up to West Pico,’ I said, wondering if an accident had just leapt into our path. ‘Let me see if the GPS is showing me another way out of this.’

‘Fuck your GPS. Don’t you know the city? Have you never read a fucking map? Or did you just recently show up in this town and land this loser job?’