Leo Benedictus

Hitchcock's Rear Window meets Messud's The Woman Upstairs in this unnerving, superbly crafted novel which takes readers deep into the mind of a serial stalker and, through him, the lives of his unsuspecting victims. Try it yourself. Go out, pick somebody and watch them. Take your phone and a notebook. Persist. What begins as a confluence of yours and another person's journeys, on the train maybe or leaving a cinema, gets into an entanglement. You follow, feeling that it's not really following because you're going the same way, then when they at last reach their office you feel the clutch of a goodbye. It's normal. But how many times do you think the person being followed has been you? READ ME is a seductive, haunting novel that holds a sinister mirror up to the ways in which we observe, judge, and influence people. Benedictus' prose commands and draws readers into the dark, manipulative mind of a serial stalker as he targets women across London, escalating his efforts until he settles on Frances -- a bright young professional whose career is set to take off -- whose life he proceeds to unravel from the inside, out. A chilling rumination on power, manipulation, complicity, and anonymity, READ ME exposes just how vulnerable we are to the whims of others -- people we may not even know.

A Novel

Read Me

Frances is bright, young and single, enjoying life and her burgeoning career in the big city. But after attracting the attentions of a stranger, her life begins to unravel from the inside out. A seductive novel of power and complicity, Consent shows us just how vulnerable we are to the will of others - people we may not even know . . .

Consent

Låt mig

Literary agent Valerie Morrell receives an email from prospective author William Mendez, containing the first chapters of a promising new novel. Mendez's book tells the story of an April night, when a nervous, nerdy journalist takes his boss's invitation to an A-list party and meets a reclusive film star, his junkie supermodel wife and a wide-eyed pop singer. Valerie is hooked by the scandalous tale of decadence, drugs and disasters, but as the book unfolds, chapter by chapter, email by email, building to a terrible climax, a parallel story emerges - of an author with an unusual, almost unreal, desire for anonymity. Who is William Mendez? And whose tale is he really telling... WITH PREVIOUSLY UNSEEN MATERIAL FOR THE PAPERBACK LONGLISTED FOR THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE

Leo Benedictus

About

Books

Join the club