Kirjahaku

In a gripping novel of secrets and survival from an acclaimed, emerging literary voice, the collision between a budding forensic investigator, his tormented mentor, and the haunted woman who emerges from the wreckage of his past will have fateful results for all. Following his collection In the Electric Eden and the novel Articles of War, Nick Arvin's The Reconstructionist is both a page-turning thriller and a powerful novel of character, with shades of Tom Franklin's Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, Dennis Cooper's The Marbled Swarm, and Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club. Fascinating and yet disturbing, redemptive and yet bleak, The Reconstructionist is like no other book today--while its timeless themes of damage and growth, decisiveness and responsibility, will echo far into the future.

At a loose end after college, Ellis Barstow drifts back to his hometown and takes a job as a reconstructionist – investigating and recreating the details of fatal car accidents. Ellis forms a bond with his boss John Boggs, who believes that if two cars meeting at an intersection can be called an accident, then anything can – where we live, what we do, even who we fall in love with. For Ellis these things are certainly no accident and he harbours two secrets of his own. The car crash that killed his half-brother is a memory that still haunts him, and his feelings for John’s wife threaten to blow apart the men’s lives. As Ellis tries to make sense of his own life, the story’s momentum builds to a desperate race towards confrontation, reconciliation and survival.

Henry Phipps is on a quest to realise his dying mother's last wish: to be buried at sea. Not an easy task considering Henry's father is in debtor's prison and his earnest older brother is fighting the red coats on the battlefields of Maryland. But Henry's stubborn determination knows no bounds. As he dodges the cannon fire of clashing armies he meets looters, defectors, renegade slaves, a pregnant maiden, and scoundrels of all types. Mad Boy is at once an antic adventure and a thoroughly convincing work of historical fiction that recreates a young nation's first truly international conflict.

From the electrocution of Topsy the Elephant at Coney Island in 1903 to the rekindling relationship of two high school sweethearts in a stolen SUV, each story in Nick Arvin's remarkable first collection reveals a world where people struggle against their own shortcomings as time and technology move inexorably forward. With great intelligence, warmth and sly humor, Arvin explores how technology shapes the way we interact with one another and how we experience a world governed by it. With awe and sympathy, he exposes our human limitations despite our apparent advancements--marking both how far we've come and how much farther we need to go. Don't miss this new edition, now with three additional stories.