A Nasty Piece of Work - Hardcover

Robert Littell

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0715647342 ISBN 13: 9780715647349

Publisher: Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd, 2014

Synopsis

A master of the spy genre, Robert Littell turns his formidable skills towards crime fiction in A Nasty Piece of Work.

Former CIA agent Lemuel Gunn left the battlefield of Afghanistan for early retirement in the desert of New Mexico, where he works as a private investigator from the creature comforts, such as they are, of a mobile home.

Into his life comes Ornella Neppi, a thirtysomething woman making a hash out of her uncle's bail bonds business. The source of her troubles, Emilio Gava, was arrested for buying cocaine. She has reason to believe he is planning to jump bail. For $95 a day plus expenses (not to mention the pleasure of her company), Gunn agrees to help Ornella track down the wayward suspect. Curiously, no photographs of Gava seem to exist, and once Gunn begins his manhunt, he starts to wonder whether Gava himself existed in the first place.

About this title

About the Author:

Robert Littell is the author of seventeen previous novels and the nonfiction book For the Future of Israel, written with Shimon Peres, president of Israel. He has been awarded both the Gold Dagger and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for his fiction. His novel The Company was a New York Times bestseller and was adapted into a television miniseries. A television series based on his novel Legends premiered on TNT in 2014. He lives in France.

From Booklist:

Littell, whose mastery of the espionage novel (Young Philby, 2012) brings comparisons with le Carré, steps into a new genre with private eye Lemuel Gunn. A CIA agent in Afghanistan until he was fired for reporting a war crime, Gunn has settled in a small New Mexico town, living in a mobile home once used by movie star Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. The action begins when the very comely Ornella Neppi, who is trying to manage her uncle’s bail-bonding agency, hires Gunn to track down Emilio Gava, who has jumped the bail Ornella posted for him. Gunn quickly learns that Gava seems not to exist; even his mug shot has disappeared from the police department. But Gunn is clever and resourceful, and romance blossoms during the hunt. If Littell’s superb espionage novels are a figurative blazing fastball, Gunn’s debut is a tantalizing changeup. He’s a twentieth-century man who listens to Nat Cole LPs, drives a 1950 Studebaker Starlight Coupe, and shuns cell phones. Littell’s espionage fans might be disappointed, but fans of quirky gumshoes will love Lemuel. --Thomas Gaughan

About this edition

• Publisher: Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0715647342
• ISBN 13: 9780715647349
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272