The Singer's Gun

Emily St. John Mandel

12 March 2015
9781447280057
304 pages

Synopsis

From the New York Times bestselling author of Station Eleven

After shaking off an increasingly dangerous venture with his cousin, Anton Waker has spent years constructing an honest life for himself. But then a routine security check brings his past crashing back towards him. His marriage and career in ruins, Anton finds himself in Italy with one last job from his cousin. But there is someone on his tail and they are getting closer . . .

The Singer's Gun follows Anton, Alex Broden - a detective on the trail of a people trafficker, and Elena, caught up in the investigation against her will. Taut and thrilling, it is a novel about identity and loyalty, and the things we are willing to sacrifice for love.

Mandel's talent is clearly visible from the get-go . . . The beauty of the novel is that its key truths are those the reader arrives at on his or her own, without the help of a straight-line narrative or a dominating perspective. Instead, Mandel feeds off of our need to make connections, even when the pattern they form doesn't really exist. We start with anxiety and end with it, thrumming in the background for us to listen in - or ignore, at both cost and reward
The Singer's Gun begins like a straightforward crime thriller . . . But Emily St. John Mandel's new novel is something far rarer than this classic noir opening suggests. She introduces us to haunted, often fugitive individuals stranded in places from New York to Italy, from the past to the present. And her book strikes a perfect balance between introspection and action . . . an eminently satisfying thriller
Brilliant