Decompression
A Novel
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
A psychological thriller in the tradition of Patricia Highsmith about two couples caught in a web of conflicting passions while deep-sea diving off the beautiful Canary Islands
In the late 1990s, Sven Fiedler and his girlfriend, Antje, left Germany for the island of Lanzarote, rejecting what Sven considered a vulgar culture of materialism and judgment. The young couple set up a diving service catering to tourists eager to bask in the warm sunshine and explore the silent, gleaming marine paradise that makes this otherwise barren volcanic island such a remarkable retreat. Sven’s approach was simple: take the mechanics of diving seriously, instruct his clients clearly, and stay out of their personal business as best he can.
And life on the island goes smoothly until two German tourists--Jola von der Pahlen, a daytime soap star on the verge of cinematic success, and Theo Hast, a stalled novelist--engage Sven for a high-priced, intensive two-week diving experience. Staying in a guest house on Sven and Antje's property, the two visitors and their hosts quickly become embroiled in a tangle of jealousy and suspicion.
Sven is struck by Jola's beauty, her evident wealth, and her apparently volatile relationship with the much older Theo. Theo quickly leaps to the conclusion that Sven and Jola are having an affair, but, oddly, he seems to facilitate it rather than trying to intervene. Antje, looking on, grows increasingly wary of these particular clients.
As the point of view shifts from one character to the next, the reader is constantly kept guessing about who knows what, and, more important, who is telling the truth. A brutal game of delusion, temptation, and manipulation plays out, pointing toward a violent end. But a quiet one, down in the underwater world beneath the waves.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sven Fielder, the narrator of this deft thriller from German author Zeh (In Free Fall), used to be a lawyer but is now a diving instructor for tourists in the Canary Islands. Self-centered, incapable of feeling or comprehending deeper emotions, Sven is content to spend his days with a lover whom he regards as a convenience. The arrival of actress Jola von der Pahlen and her abusive husband, Theo Hast, on the island of Lanzarote disrupts his routine. Sven becomes increasingly obsessed with Jola, while Theo inexplicably encourages the affair. Wrestling with unfamiliar emotions, the infatuated instructor can't fathom the intricacies of his clients' dysfunctional relationship, his true role in it, or the depths to which his clients will sink. This is a competent character study of a man drawn unwillingly into a situation he's ill equipped to handle a figure whose fundamental flaws leave him vulnerable to destruction from a direction to which he's blind.
