The House of Fame
A Novel
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- 3,99 €
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- 3,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
From the author of the acclaimed The Hollow Man and Deep Shelter, comes the third installment featuring the shrewd, cynical, and brilliant London detective, Nick Belsey, whose investigation into a child’s disappearance pulls him into the hedonistic orbit of a young, hot celebrity actress/musician and the dark world lurking underneath its glamorous exterior.
Twenty-seven, rich and beautiful, Amber Knight is living everyone’s dream. Her music career is established, her acting career is taking off, and she has a lifestyle fit for the top of the A-List.
So why has she started acting so strangely?
At least, that’s how it seems to Nick Belsey. A less celebrated resident of North London, Belsey’s decade-long career at Hampstead CID is coming to an abrupt end, but he still can’t seem to kick his habit of getting into serious trouble. When he’s asked by a desperate mother to help find her only son, Belsey has to infiltrate Amber’s glittering world. The seedy underside to her seemingly perfect life—a realm of excess, obsession, lust, and greed—doesn’t surprise him. What does is the blood trail that leads directly to Amber.
As one twisted crime is followed by another, Belsey finds himself chasing even more answers than when he started out. And when the stakes are raised dangerously high, Belsey’s own survival is at stake. It may be too late to save his reputation but he’s not ready to die just yet—and especially not at the hands of a celebrity.
“Harris has a terrific sense of place, hurtling between the wealthiest and most-run-down areas of London. But the cleverest thing about his third Belsey novel is the way the plot unfolds in a chilling and totally unexpected direction.”—Sunday Times (London)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British author Harris's stellar third crime novel featuring North London police detective Nick Belsey (after 2014's Deep Shelter) combines an intriguing and surprising plot with an uncompromisingly bleak worldview that fans of Cornell Woolrich's despairing noir fiction will relish. At one point, Belsey observes that everyone's "sick and evil; humanity's redeeming feature was its laziness most people kept their malevolence in fantasies." Belsey's in a tough spot as the book opens an allegation of gross misconduct has led to his suspension, and an anonymous call tips him off that the Independent Police Complaints Commission is about to lower the boom. He holes up at recently closed Hampstead police station, where Maureen Doughty, a woman needing his help, finds him. Belsey takes pity on Maureen, whose 41-year-old son, Mark, has disappeared. He accompanies her to her flat, where he finds disturbing indications of Mark's obsession with mega pop star Amber Knight, whose upcoming wedding has sparked a media frenzy. In his search for Mark, Belsey emerges as a memorably flawed protagonist.