"As though Martin Amis had been written by Henry Green and David Cook"

- Times Literary Supplement

continued

One day Frank Fisher leaves his house, walks to the post box on the corner of the street and disappears.

He turns the corner and is suddenly gone, as if the street had swallowed him. The neighbours see nothing. His wife, Jessica, slumped in the sofa, watching TV, makes a nest from a pile of embroidered cushions, yawns and falls asleep. No one sees Frank vanish.

It is a little past three o’clock but on this dismal winter afternoon the city is already steeped in darkness. Lights shine from parlour windows along the terrace of narrow houses. The sky is a swirling, sulphurous gravy. The pavements are greasy with rain.

Frank turns the corner and is about to step from the kerb when he sees a Mercedes swerving towards him and and a man somersaulting into the gutter. The man has been thrown from the back of the car. He’s a large old man in a black overcoat that fans from his shoulders like wings. He hits the pavement, rolls forward, grunts and turns his face to the sky. The face is bruised and flecked with blood.

Frank shouts and shrinks back on tiptoe. He thinks the old man is dead. And as he stands there, shivering and confused, two men climb from the car and saunter towards him through the gloom. They are tall men, as lean as shadows, dressed in expensive charcoal suits and highly polished shoes. They are silent and staring. They move with easy grace of panthers.

CHAPTER ONE

1

FASCINATED

 People disappear every day. They just seem to evaporate. Frank walks out to post a letter and vanishes, falling headlong into a murky underworld of London gangsters and their violent turf war.  In return for a favour he’s offered everything his heart desires.  But there’s just one problem – he can never go home again.