'A taut, subtle, postmodern literary thriller.' SUNDAY TIMES
'A remarkable debut; an accomplished and intricately plotted story.'-JON McGREGOR
'A Lonely Man is a delicate snare of a novel.'-BRANDON TAYLOR
'A thrilling, unnerving novel. a page-turner with exacting syntax and emotional heft.'-CATHERINE LACEY
'Impressively deft. A Lonely Man is a tense and taut work.'-BENJAMIN MYERS
Robert is a struggling writer living in Berlin with his wife and two young daughters. One night he meets Patrick, an enigmatic stranger with a sensational story to tell: a ghostwriter for a Russian oligarch - recently found hanged - who is now being followed. But is he really in danger? Patrick's life strikes Robert as a fabrication, but one that comes to obsess him. He decides to use the other man, and his story.
An elegant and atmospheric twist on the cat-and-mouse narrative, A Lonely Man is a novel
of shadows, of the search for identity and the elastic nature of truth. As his association with Patrick hurtles towards tragedy, Robert must decide: are actual events the only things that give a story life, and are some stories too dangerous to tell?
Genre: Literary Fiction
'A remarkable debut; an accomplished and intricately plotted story.'-JON McGREGOR
'A Lonely Man is a delicate snare of a novel.'-BRANDON TAYLOR
'A thrilling, unnerving novel. a page-turner with exacting syntax and emotional heft.'-CATHERINE LACEY
'Impressively deft. A Lonely Man is a tense and taut work.'-BENJAMIN MYERS
Robert is a struggling writer living in Berlin with his wife and two young daughters. One night he meets Patrick, an enigmatic stranger with a sensational story to tell: a ghostwriter for a Russian oligarch - recently found hanged - who is now being followed. But is he really in danger? Patrick's life strikes Robert as a fabrication, but one that comes to obsess him. He decides to use the other man, and his story.
An elegant and atmospheric twist on the cat-and-mouse narrative, A Lonely Man is a novel
of shadows, of the search for identity and the elastic nature of truth. As his association with Patrick hurtles towards tragedy, Robert must decide: are actual events the only things that give a story life, and are some stories too dangerous to tell?
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"A Lonely Man entrances with its ingenious structure, haunting mood of paranoia and intrigue, and games of literature and violence played out in a seductively rendered Berlin. I savored every page." - Rob Doyle
"A portrait of a man and his dawning, imperfect realization that his connections with others have been facile, even superficial, A Lonely Man is an unsettling portrait of contemporary masculinity. The prose has a lambent, hovering quality and the sinewy, clearness of line of a Simenon roman dur-it’s a very English, European novel. Power leaves us with a burden of fear and irresolution, something that is in the best of Le Carré or Ambler." - David Hayden
"I loved this taut, graceful literary thriller, in which domesticity is as riveting as the threat of criminal entanglement. In A Lonely Man, family life-and love-is the beating heart of the story, creating an absorbing, menacing interplay between home, ambition and (self-) deception." - Megan Hunter
"A Lonely Man manages to set an unlikely premise alongside extraordinary events, while speaking honestly about the overwhelming, mundane things of fatherhood and being a friend and husband. A very deft literary act." - Cynan Jones
"A thrilling, unnerving novel following an international conspiracy and domestic solitude-A Lonely Man is one of those rare books that’s as entertaining as it is perceptive, a page-turner with exacting syntax and emotional heft." - Catherine Lacey
"A Lonely Man is a remarkable debut; an accomplished and intricately plotted story that manages to be both thrilling and deeply considered. If you're a fan of existential crises, family dramas, Putin-era paranoias, and Bolaño-style multiplicities, and want to see them woven into one taut novel, you're in the right place. A lonely triumph." - Jon McGregor
"Such grand themes as wealth, power, greed and truth itself are explored in an impressively deft and discrete way. Here a bottle of beer or an illicit kiss feel as subtly significant as the death of an oligarch or a mysterious man on the run. A Lonely Man is a tense and taut work that’s utterly European, and all the better for it." - Benjamin Myers
"A Lonely Man left me unnerved and chilled. To read this book is to encounter a mysterious and shapeshifting stranger. Chris Power writes with masterful dexterity, and this novel reveals his genius for subtle misdirection and pulsing tension. A Lonely Man is a delicate snare of a novel, and by the time you realize that the characters are trapped in a lethal game, you are also trapped and powerless to resist its hold. I was breathless and nervous by the end of it. An alluring and seductive novel." - Brandon Taylor
"Is it possible to spin a thriller, a real thriller, out of the deep and bitter mysteries at the heart of the creative process? With A Lonely Man, Chris Power shows us that it can be done, and done beautifully. This is a thinking person’s novel of suspense-and also one of the most vivid and unsparing accounts of the expatriate writer’s life that I’ve encountered. Mr. Power writes with genuine daring." - John Wray
"A portrait of a man and his dawning, imperfect realization that his connections with others have been facile, even superficial, A Lonely Man is an unsettling portrait of contemporary masculinity. The prose has a lambent, hovering quality and the sinewy, clearness of line of a Simenon roman dur-it’s a very English, European novel. Power leaves us with a burden of fear and irresolution, something that is in the best of Le Carré or Ambler." - David Hayden
"I loved this taut, graceful literary thriller, in which domesticity is as riveting as the threat of criminal entanglement. In A Lonely Man, family life-and love-is the beating heart of the story, creating an absorbing, menacing interplay between home, ambition and (self-) deception." - Megan Hunter
"A Lonely Man manages to set an unlikely premise alongside extraordinary events, while speaking honestly about the overwhelming, mundane things of fatherhood and being a friend and husband. A very deft literary act." - Cynan Jones
"A thrilling, unnerving novel following an international conspiracy and domestic solitude-A Lonely Man is one of those rare books that’s as entertaining as it is perceptive, a page-turner with exacting syntax and emotional heft." - Catherine Lacey
"A Lonely Man is a remarkable debut; an accomplished and intricately plotted story that manages to be both thrilling and deeply considered. If you're a fan of existential crises, family dramas, Putin-era paranoias, and Bolaño-style multiplicities, and want to see them woven into one taut novel, you're in the right place. A lonely triumph." - Jon McGregor
"Such grand themes as wealth, power, greed and truth itself are explored in an impressively deft and discrete way. Here a bottle of beer or an illicit kiss feel as subtly significant as the death of an oligarch or a mysterious man on the run. A Lonely Man is a tense and taut work that’s utterly European, and all the better for it." - Benjamin Myers
"A Lonely Man left me unnerved and chilled. To read this book is to encounter a mysterious and shapeshifting stranger. Chris Power writes with masterful dexterity, and this novel reveals his genius for subtle misdirection and pulsing tension. A Lonely Man is a delicate snare of a novel, and by the time you realize that the characters are trapped in a lethal game, you are also trapped and powerless to resist its hold. I was breathless and nervous by the end of it. An alluring and seductive novel." - Brandon Taylor
"Is it possible to spin a thriller, a real thriller, out of the deep and bitter mysteries at the heart of the creative process? With A Lonely Man, Chris Power shows us that it can be done, and done beautifully. This is a thinking person’s novel of suspense-and also one of the most vivid and unsparing accounts of the expatriate writer’s life that I’ve encountered. Mr. Power writes with genuine daring." - John Wray
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