The Paperchase - Softcover

An engaging mystery and an illuminating story about family secrets and identity ... the author's deft descriptions of an angular childhood spiked with the soft humour of hindsight remain in the mind (THE TIMES)

[A] smartly written, atmospheric novel (INDEPENDENT)

The best writing will always tell us what is unusual about the usual . . . Theroux's achievement is to show us the world of mystery and pain that lies behind the ordinary lives of his characters . . . His book thoroughly deserved its 2002 Somerset Maugham Award (THE TIMES)

Theroux has written a clever and engaging novel which, after lulling the reader into a false sense of comfort, takes great delight in turning the world upside down. An absorbing read (BIG ISSUE)

Damien March hasn't thought of his eccentric uncle, Patrick, for almost twenty years, so he is shocked to learn that he has inherited his ramshackle house on Ionia, an isolated island off the coast of Cape Cod. But his new future means moving circuitously into his family's past; rummaging through his uncle's possessions, he finds letters and writings that provide scattered clues to Patrick's solitary life. And when he discovers a fragment of an unpublished novel, The Confessions of Mycroft Holmes, which seems to hold a sinister meaning, the stakes in the chase become dramatically higher. Perceptively written with an engaging wit.