The Key of the Tower

First edition. 8vo. Pp. [viii], 176. Black cloth boards, lettered in gilt to spine; maroon endpapers. Dustjacket illustration by David Browne, after Georges de la Tour.

Toning to textblock edges, else fine.

Author's fourth novel. Two men, driving along opposing directions on a French country road, are forced to swap cars and trespass into each other's plot arcs, when a fallen tree blocks their path.

A Hitchcockian literary thriller from the much-feted author of The Holy Innocents (1988), Love and Death on Long Island (1990), and The Death of the Author (1992). Winner of the Scott Moncrieff Prize for his "fiendish" translation of Georges Perec's postmodern novel La Disparition. [A Void.] (1994), in which the letter e is absent. "Adair's plotting is, as ever, impeccable and fast-paced, producing surprises up to the last gasp." –Lorna Sage, London Review of Books