What is the devastating effect on your life when, through no fault of your own, you lose everything - home, family, friends, job, reputation, passport, money, credit cards, mobile phone - and you can never get them back? This is what happens to a young man called Adam Kindred, one May evening in Chelsea, London, when a freakish series of malign accidents and a split-second decision turns his life upside down for ever. 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 the 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 the lowest level of London's population 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 encounters all manner of London's denizens - aristocrats, prostitutes, priests 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 scandal of big business, and the secrets that lie hidden in the filthy underbelly of every city.
This book was first published in 2009. Adam Kindred got himself in a lot of trouble when he tried to be a good person for bringing a bunch of papers to a man he had a bit of conversation with at an Italian restaurant. He found the guy in his hotel room stabbed on the chest and mysteriously, the guy asked him to remove the knife (probably to hasten his death so as not to suffer). It's like in the movies, when a stupid character holds the murder weapon. You keep shouting, "No don't touch it!", and he proceeds to touch it. 😅
Adam was both unlucky and lucky as the story progressed. I thought the story is about being hunted by the police which is partially true. The bulk of the story is Adam's transformation from being a man trying to redeem himself from a previous mistake and hoping to get a new job, to a fugitive with 2 different aliases and impersonations. He had no choice but the second one landed on his lap without any effort. Along the way, Adam and the story meandered into Big Pharma corruption.
I liked the humorous situations but had to suspend disbelief in the anti-hero's mis"adventures".
Recommended only for William Boyd fans.
