ABOUT THE BOOK

"Somewhere, among the wastes of the world, is the key that will bring us back, restore us to our Earth and to our freedom," Pynchon wrote in Gravity's Rainbow. Never has a man's search among those wastes, for that freedom, been better represented than in this stunning conclusion to the Lew Griffin cycle.

In his old house in uptown New Orleans, Lew Griffin is alone again…or almost. He and Deborah are drifting apart. His son David has disappeared again, leaving behind a note that sounds final. Heading homeward from his retirement party, his friend, Don Walsh has been shot while interrupting a robbery. Worst of all, Lew himself is directionless, no longer teaching, with little to fill his days. He hasn't written anything in years. Even the attempt to discover the source of threatening letters sent to a friend leaves him feeling rootless and lost.

Through five previous novels, James Sallis has enthralled and challenged readers as he has told the story of Lew Griffin, private detective, teacher, writer, port, and a black man moving through a white man's world. And now Lew Griffin stands alone in a dark room, looking out. Behind him on the bed is a body. Wind pecks at the window. Traffic sounds drift aimlessly in. He thinks if he doesn't speak, doesn't think about what happened, somehow things will be alright again. He thinks about his own life, about the other's, about how the two of them came to be here…

In a series as much about identity as it is about crime, Sallis has held a mirror up to society and culture, while at the same time setting Lew Griffin the task of discovering who he is. As the detective stands in that dark room, the answers begin to come clear and the highly acclaimed series builds to a brilliantly constructed climax that will resonate in readers' minds long after the story is finished.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

Allusive and stylish, this stark metaphysical landscape will leave a resounding impression. - Maxim Jakubowski, Guardian Online

'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

'Think Paul Auster more than Elmore Leonard, Charles Johnson more than Walter Mosley, Don DeLillo more than Carl Hiassen.' - Newsday

'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

'Richly atmospheric, haunting, utterly compelling, the Lew Griffin novels are magnificent. James Sallis is an outstanding crime writer - an outstanding writer period.' - Frances McDormand

NEWS

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.