ABOUT THE BOOK

Lew Griffin is a survivor, a black man in New Orleans, a detective, a teacher, a writer. And he is a man subject to all of the frailties to which we are heir. Having spent years finding others, he has lost his son...and himself in the process.

Now a derelict has appeared in a New Orleans hospital claiming to be Lewis Griffin and displaying a copy of one of Lew's novels. It is the beginning of a quest that will take Griffin into his own past while he tries to deal in the present with a search for three missing young men.

Somewhere in the underbelly of the Crescent City, there are answers and more questions; there are threats and the promise of salvation; and there is a dangerous descent into the alcoholic haze that marked Griffin's younger days as well as the possibility of rising from it, redeemed. Lew Griffin's investigation is the hero's journey, mythic and strengthening and thoroughly satisfying.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

'He's right up there, one of the best of the best. His series of novels about private eye Lew Griffin is thoughtful, challenging and beautifully written.' - Ian Rankin, The Guardian

'Sallis investigates the cynical, violent, sophisticated world of modern espionage with authority and originality. His adult view of spies and their world has all the delicious, ambiguous atmosphere, the complexity of plot and character we expect from Graham Green or John le Carre - and it goes like a bullet train. Sallis is a superb writer and this is his best novel yet!' - Michael Moorcock.

'Speaking of James Sallis in the same tone as Poe and Dostoevski is not overblowing on my part. His early work indicates a mind and a talent of uncommon dimensions. He may well be one of the significant ones' - Harlan Ellison

'Sallis is a fastidious man, intelligent and widely read. There’s nothing slapdash or merely strategic about his work ... peculiar and visionary.' London Review of Books

'Better than James Lee Burke and Walter Mosley.' - Crime Time

'One of the most intriguing, disturbing, literate, intelligent and powerful novels I've read in years.' - David Bradley

NEWS

Jim Sallis In the UK- August 2000

Jim Sallis made his presence felt in the UK during August appearing at the Edinburgh Literary Festival, talking enthusiastically about jazz to Charlie Gillett on London radio and appearing in conversation with Iain Sinclair at that great London literary venue Filthy McNasty's Whiskey Bar in Clerkenwell. If you'd like to see what music he chose for Charlie Gillett, check out the playlist for the show.

It has been a particularly busy period for Jim Sallis as his collected short fiction Time's Hammers has been published by Toxic Press, and Canongate have published his definitive biography of Chester Himes. Ian Rankin describes the work as 'no mere history of a personality... Sallis brings exceptional depth and empathy to his portrait of Himes'. Canongate have also posted an exclusive short story and it seems that Jim Sallis' extraordinary ability may be coming to the attention of a whole new generation of readers.