First published 2011
Actor Toby Flood arrives in Brighton for the final week of a touring production of Joe Orton's "Lodger in the Throat." His career has stalled, and like the rest of the cast, he just wants this failed tour to end. Then his estranged wife Jenny appears at his door. She lives with wealthy businessman Roger Colborn now, but she needs Toby's help. A strange man keeps lurking outside her shop in the Lanes, and Roger won't take her seriously. Toby agrees to investigate and confronts Derek Oswin, an unemployed man who blames Roger and his late father Sir Walter Colborn for his own father's cancer death. Their plastics factory used dangerous practices, Oswin claims. Toby convinces Oswin to back off, but when Roger learns of Toby's involvement, he tries to pay him to disappear. Toby sees a chance to win Jenny back instead. He starts asking questions about Sir Walter's mysterious death seven years ago. Soon Toby finds himself trapped between the Oswins and Colborns in a conflict he doesn't understand, with his own survival suddenly at stake.
Genres: mystery, crime, contemporary, thriller
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Brighton, The Lanes
Period: Contemporary
416 pages · Paperback · Corgi