It is May in Chelsea, London. The glittering river is unusually high on an otherwise ordinary afternoon. Adam Kindred, a young climatologist in town for a job interview, ambles along the Embankment, admiring the view. He is pleasantly surprised to come across a little Italian bistro down a leafy side street. During his meal he strikes up a conversation with a solitary diner at the next table, who leaves soon afterwards. With horrifying speed, this chance encounter leads to a series of malign accidents through which Adam ...
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It is May in Chelsea, London. The glittering river is unusually high on an otherwise ordinary afternoon. Adam Kindred, a young climatologist in town for a job interview, ambles along the Embankment, admiring the view. He is pleasantly surprised to come across a little Italian bistro down a leafy side street. During his meal he strikes up a conversation with a solitary diner at the next table, who leaves soon afterwards. With horrifying speed, this chance encounter leads to a series of malign accidents through which Adam will lose everything - home, family, friends, job, reputation, passport, credit cards, mobile phone - never to get them back. The police are searching for him. There is a reward for his capture. A hired killer is stalking him. He is alone and anonymous in a huge, pitiless modern city. Adam has nowhere to go but down - underground. He decides to join that vast army of the disappeared and the missing that throng London's lowest levels as he tries to figure out what to do with his life and struggles to understand the forces that have made it unravel so spectacularly. His quest will take him all along the River Thames, from affluent Chelsea to the sink estates of the East End, and on the way he will encounter all manner of London's denizens - aristocrats, prostitutes, evangelists and policewomen amongst them - and version after new version of himself. William Boyd's electric follow-up to Costa Novel of the Year Restless is a heart-in-mouth conspiracy novel about the fragility of social identity, the corruption at the heart of big business, and the secrets that lie hidden in the filthy underbelly of everyday city.
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Add this copy of Ordinary Thunderstorms (Signed) to cart. $139.97, poor condition, Sold by Burwood Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Wickham Market, SUFFOLK, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2009 by Bloomsbury.
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Seller's Description:
Poor. First Edition. Signed. Hardback. Dust Jacket. 8vo. pp 403. With loosely inserted manuscript card letter signed by Boyd to his friend, the publisher Christopher Sinclair-Stevenson, who had written to him about the novel. ISBN: 9781408802397. pp 403. F in F, unclipped d.j. Dated 26 September 2009, the loosely inserted card has William Boyd's printed letterhead, and the message ends 'Love to you both, Will'. With intriguing insights into Boyd's preoccupations and his novels' characters: ...'The book seems to be selling well apart from one week of total distribution failure...I garnered my usual mixed crop of reviews: a few very good, a lot middling and a few, perverse stinkers. Funnily enough, I don't think people read fiction reviews any more. /I too am oddly fond of Jonjo Case. I realise I keep putting characters like him into my novels. They have a completely skewed and completely confident view of life and the human condition-things are either black or they're white. Shades of grey not admitted...' Fine in fine dust jacket. No other inscriptions, not price-clipped.
Add this copy of Ordinary Thunderstorms By Boyd, William ( Author ) on to cart. $22.24, like new condition, Sold by The Guru Bookshop rated 3.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Hereford, WALES, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2009 by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC.
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Seller's Description:
Fine. Fourth Printing with dust jacket & SIGNED BY AUTHOR byway of a dedication-Rare and Collectable-will send out 1st class post within 12 hours of receipt of order.
Add this copy of Ordinary Thunderstorms to cart. $52.85, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Bloomsbury.
IMHO William Boyd has produced a magnificent body of work until now. With "Ordinary Thunderstorms" something else has happened. The plot is the problem. Generally I have no difficulty believing in corporate greed and criminality but this just didn't seem convincing nor many of the reactions of the hero. I wanted to believe.
