The American

There are echoes of Nabokov in this in this tense and poetic mystery * Today *
Crisp yet lyrical, simple yet intelligent…haunting, shocking, and tense…Readers looking for thought-provoking literary fiction can’t do any better than this * Booklist *
A psychological suspense thriller invested with life-and-death gravitas * Seattle Times *
With Farfalla, Booth has a created a rich, conflicted antihero whose clever rationalizations mask a soul weary with self-doubt * Boston Globe *
The lazy, languid setting is an eerily effective backdrop for the fresh and beguiling murder intrigue…With first-rate characters and a gradual buildup of suspense, Booth constructs a focused, tightly written novel * Publishers Weekly *
A psychological suspense thriller invested with life-and-death gravitas * Seattle Times *
Booth’s prose exhibits such a nicely pointed clarity that it would be all too easy to devour this beguiling story and to take for granted its artful construction, its sparkle, its vivid conjuring of character and landscape * Sunday Times *

Martin Booth was a novelist, critic, biographer, children’s author, and social historian. He died of a brain tumor in 2004. Shortly after his diagnosis, he began writing his acclaimed memoir of his childhood in Hong Kong, Gweilo, which he completed shortly before his death.

Among his acclaimed novels are:

• Hiroshima Joe, based on the life of a real down-and-out Briton who had survived the Nagasaki atomic raid.
• The Industry of Souls, which was short-listed for the Booker Prize.
• A Very Private Gentleman, which has since been filmed as The American, starring George Clooney.

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