New Novel by Paul Theroux (Malawi 1963–65)

A Dead Hand: A Crime in Calcutta by Theroux is due out in mid-February from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This is Theroux’s forty-third book, his twenty-seventh novel that includes Hotel Honolulu, My Other Life, and The Elephanta Suite, his most recent collection of short fiction, which Time Magazine said was, “a set of brilliantly evocative and propulsive novellas.”

This novel is about Jerry Delfont, a travel journalist leading an aimless life, struggling in vain against his writer’s block, and flitting around the edges of a half-hearted romance when he receives a mysterious letter asking for his help. The story he tells is distrubing: a dead boy found on the floor of a cheap hotel; a seemingly innocent man in flight and fearing for his reputation as well as his life.

Well, typical Theroux.

Note: A Dead Hand is now available at Amazon — click on either the linked title or the book cover.