Amnesia Nights

Fast-paced, well-written literary yet commercial psychological thriller for fans of Patricia Highsmith, Nicci French, Paul Auster, early Martin Amis (Money, London Fields, Rachel Papers), Val McDermid, PD James, Denis Johnson, Jo Nesbo. Concise storytelling, filmic. Readable, dynamic, literary style, and troubling. Set in Los Angeles, Malibu, Harvard, Minneapolis. Novels examines search for identity, unreliability of memory, obsession, loneliness, familial relationships - a sideways love story. Unsettling story, but characters inspire affection. Male author and young male protagonist in arena currently dominated by women – psychological crime. Suitable for literary fiction, crime and psychological thriller readers.
Key themes:
• Everyone is lost or looking for something; power and control are ultimate weapons; family relationships hide insidious enemies; novel reveals the fundamental truths of the human condition.
• People are driven to extremity despite efforts to avoid it, wrestling with matters that take a lifetime to unravel, playing out in characters and the stories they inhabit.
• Reinventing one’s identity in relation to status and materialism, then finding that one has lost track of one’s centre, even one’s actions and memories. Money is another way to self-destruction. Amnesia Nights’ sub-plot gives a critique of materialism and the corrupting of identity in the face of greed and acquisition.
• Young person’s story, told with the optimism of wanting to reinvent one’s self in the face of love but finding it difficult to keep to the plot of said reinvention Male and female 17-90; those interested in psychological writing. Most of the current thrillers are by women – this has a male author and male protagonist and explores the interior life of the protagonist – main narrative is his viewpoint - but book is plot driven, has cinematic quality. Complex ideas set in mystery novel; an engaging read. Music comp: Radiohead