When Jerry Delfont, a travel writer with writer’s block,
receives a letter from an American philanthropist,
Mrs Merrill Unger, with news of a scandal involving an Indian
friend of her son’s, he is sufficiently intrigued to pursue the story.
Who is the dead boy found on the floor of a cheap hotel room,
how and why did he die—and will this writer,
whom Mrs Unger claims to admire, find out what really happened?
Jerry is swiftly captivated by the beautiful, mysterious Mrs Unger,
whose Tantric massages revive him, but the circumstances surrounding
the dead boy cause him increasingly to doubt the exact nature of her
philanthropy. With his trademark clarity of description and observation,
Theroux brings to dramatic life a dark and twisted narrative of obsession and need.
Praise for ‘A Dead Hand: A Crime in Calcutta’
‘One needs energy to keep up with the extraordinary,
productive restlessness of Paul Theorux . . .
The most gifted, most prodigal writer of his generation’ Jonathan Raban
