The Drowned Detective
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- €9.99
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- €9.99
Publisher Description
Jonathan is a private investigator in a decaying eastern European city, consumed by his work and his failing marriage. Approached one day by an elderly couple, he is presented with a faded photograph of their daughter, missing for nearly two decades. Troubled by the image of the little girl, who was the same age when she vanished as his own daughter is now – he is compelled to find her.
But one night, soon after taking on the case, as he walks across the bridge spanning the river that divides the city, he encounters a young woman crouched at the foot of a stone angel – a woman who suddenly leaps into the icy water below. Without thinking, Jonathan plunges after her, and is soon drawn into her ghostly world of confusion, coincidence and intrigue, and the city he thought he knew turns strange and threatening.
Haunting and deeply moving, The Drowned Detective is an intoxicating, atmospheric exploration of relationships, lies and betrayal – confirming Neil Jordon as a master storyteller and a vital literary voice.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Jordan, writer and filmmaker (The Crying Game), returns to his favorite theme that of a missing woman in this curious new novel. Jonathan is a detective who works for a tracing agency. When he is asked to locate Petra, the missing daughter of a rural couple in an unnamed Eastern European city, he enlists the help of Gertrude, a psychic whose Pomeranian has a luxated patella. She burns a map to guide Jonathan to Petra's whereabouts, but the mystery of the missing woman soon becomes secondary to Jonathan's relationship with an unnamed cellist he saves after she jumps off a bridge. Intrigued by her sad beauty, he visits her repeatedly. Are the two women connected? Jordan teases out the answer as Jonathan grapples with the infidelity of his wife, Sarah, while protests and ghosts lurk in the background. As the story unspools, Jordan shows his strengths as a writer in the terrific dialogue and atmospheric imagery. However, what starts out as spellbinding soon becomes underwhelming, never fully delivering on the strong set-up.