Product Description

When Adam Woods takes a job in Venice as the assistant to the reclusive writer Gordon Crace, he does not expect that he will end up writing his biography. Nor does he expect the uncanny similarity between himself and Crace's former tenant, who died in mysterious circumstances decades earlier. But when his desire to write the book of Crace's life becomes an obsession that takes Adam from the swampy canals of Venice to the hallowed halls of a great English public school, we get the uncomfortable sense that Adam isn't all we think he is...An unsettling and deeply atmospheric thriller from the author of a critically acclaimed biography of Patricia Highsmith, Andrew Wilson destabilises our notions of authorship, identity and moral authority.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #327823 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-31
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Review
"Andrew Wilson leaves us with an intimate glimpse of his subject... [he] is an unintrusive narrator, but has tackled his first-rate book in a distinctive way" Daily Telegraph "Wilson does a terrific job when it comes to conjuring up atmosphere... Wilson pulls no punches" The Times "An absorbing and terribly sad book... sometimes, it was in the small, and absolutely bizarre, detail in this book by Andrew Wilson that one felt one had glimpsed the very odd imagination of the person who wrote those marvellous books" Evening Standard"

Val McDermid
'Reading The Lying Tongue is like walking across the shifting
floor of a funfair Haunted House. Andrew Wilson wrongfoots the reader every
chance he gets. It's gruesomely mesmerising.'

About the Author
Andrew Wilson was born in Lancashire, in 1967. After graduating from King's College, London he studied journalism at City University, London. He left there in 1989, winning the John Willis Memorial Prize for an investigation into male prostitution and started work as a magazine journalist. In 1992 he embarked on a career in freelance writing and since then he has worked for a range of publications including the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, Independent on Sunday and Guardian. Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith, his first book, was shortlisted for the Whitbread Biography Award and won the Edgar Allan Poe award in the USA. He currently lives with his partner in Spain.

Customer Reviews

good enough to want to read more by this author
I was hooked immediately by this book - I was right there in Venice with Adam and his strange experiences getting to know the reclusive author.

I liked the gradual exposition of Adam's past and I expected some twists in the tale - and there were plenty of them that I didn't see coming and delighted me - but the ending left too many unanswered questions -
Still good enough to make me want to read anything else this author writes.

tedium
After an intriguing beginning and some good suspense sequences at the palazzo, the story descends into the tedious and downright unconvincing. Most of the observations are banal. Gave up a couple of pages into chapter 2.

creepy and compelling crime classic....
I was gripped by this book from the first page, with its evocative descriptions of the fading grandeur of venice and the sinister yet charismatic lead characters. The deft plot lures the reader on and on, climaxing in violence and unexpected revelations. I really enjoyed it.