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Hardcover - 240 pages (November 1998) Permanent Press, Sag Harbor, NY; ISBN: 1579620132 "A surrealistic novel on the helplessness of man before fate. Set in Central Europe, the hero is a small-time bureaucrat who agrees to replace a friend on a date. The woman belongs to the political opposition, the friend is murdered and the hero's troubles begin. A first novel." Synopsis copyright Fiction Digest |
Somewhere in Europe east of the Rhine, a phone call interrupts the comfortable dreariness of a workday at the Pyramid Combine. Petiris used to practicing bureaucratic evasions to protect the company from the claims of hopeless petitioners; but when this caller makes an outrageous demand Petit surprises himself and accepts. The story that follows takes him through a dreamlike landscape where nothing is as it seems and where the transformation of the world around him is matched by changes in Petir himself. Both seeker and fugitive, he finds himself connected to a mysterious murder on the barbaric fringes of the city, he's pursued by a relentless stalker, and he becomes involved with a woman caught up in dangerous political activity. As he learns more about the web of intrigue, corruption, and terror in the government, he has to grapple with aspects of his personal history that he's tried energetically to forget. Hauntingly vivid, K.C. Frederick's novel takes the reader along with Petir on a journey of consciousness.