From Jon Courtenay Grimwood, author of the celebrated Arabesk series, comes a stunningly inventive novel of futuristic noir set in a world of shifting realities. Here a man is drawn into a gritty postmodern subculture and a secret kingdom of otherworldly beings to find what he lost long ago: a reason to live.

Kit Nouveau figured he’d already come to the end of the world. An Iraqi war veteran, expatriate, and part owner of Pirate Mary’s, the best Irish bar in Tokyo, Kit had settled down to await the inevitable with barely a whimper. It wasn’t exactly how Kit thought he’d end up, and he was right.

It’s going to end up a lot worse.

A teenage runaway with fifteen million dollars in stolen cash and a taste for cosplay is about to save Kit’s life in a lethal swirl of scarlet and bridal lace. Lady Neku, a.k.a. Countess of High Strange, has her own dangerous destiny to fulfill and it’s mysteriously connected to Kit’s ravaged past. Now Kit’s only hope for redemption is to save an ex-girlfriend he tragically failed once before. But everyone says it’s already too late. And she’s left behind only one ominous clue: her suicide note.


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“Fast yet humane, hip yet bizarre, futuristic yet embedded in the absolute present moment of the world, Jon Courtenay Grimwood’s novels read like thrillers but maintain a kind of caring irony and clarity of political vision which not only make him one of the best of the new U.K. SF writers but suggest new directions for every kind of writing.”—M. John Harrison, author of Light

“Defiantly individual, and works in that interesting margin where myth, futurism, literature and pop culture all interbreed.” —Times, UK

“Grimwood's latest tale reads as if Kurt Vonnegut were writing manga for the producers of Doctor Who.”—Publishers Weekly


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Jon Courtenay Grimwood lives in England. The third book in his acclaimed Arabesk series, Felaheen, won the 2003 British Science Fiction Association Award, appeared on Locus Magazine's 2003 Recommended Reading List, and appeared on SFSite's Best of 2003 list.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

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