Publisher's Synopsis
Leonard Lessing is a jazzman taking a break. He's almost fifty, addicted to the media, reliving old gigs, and finds his life is not so much in a rut as a well-oiled groove. He and his wife Francine are struggling to cope with the absence of Francine's daughter, who at twenty has upped and left and immaculately covered her tracks. Otherwise their life in a regulated surburb is unremarkable - until a few miles away hostages are seized and the ringleader of the kidnappers turns out to be a man from Leonard's past.
Set in the south of England, 2024, and Austin, Texas, 1997, and populated by a quartet of strong and fiery women, this hypnotic novel wonders whether a life full of sound and fury signifies more than a life lived quietly, and asks what it really means to be courageous.
