ORDINARY THUNDERSTORMS
by
William Boyd
What is the devastating effect on your life when, through
no fault of your own, you lose everything - home, family,
friends, job, reputation, passport, money, credit cards,
mobile phone - and you can never get them back? This is
what happens to a young man called Adam Kindred, one May
evening in Chelsea, London, when a freakish series of malign
accidents and a split-second decision turns his life upside
down for ever. The police are searching for him. There is
a reward for his capture. A hired killer is stalking him.
He is alone and anonymous in the huge, pitiless modern city.
Adam has nowhere to go but down - underground. He decides
to join that vast army of the disappeared and the missing
that throng the lowest level of London's population as he
tries to figure out what to do with his life and struggles
to understand the forces that have made it unravel so spectacularly.
His quest will take him all along the River Thames, from
affluent Chelsea to the sink estates of the East End, and
on the way he encounters all manner of London's denizens
- aristocrats, prostitutes, priests and policewomen amongst
them - and version after new version of himself. William
Boyd's electric follow-up to Costa Novel of the Year Restless
is a heart-in-mouth conspiracy novel about the fragility
of social identity, the scandal of big business, and the
secrets that lie hidden in the filthy underbelly of every
city.
Guardian
review
You
tube interview with William Boyd
Author's website
