Show Me the Sky - Softcover

Nicholas Hogg

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1847671586 ISBN 13: 9781847671585

Publisher: Canongate Books, 2009

Synopsis

missing adj. 1. not present; absent or lost. 2. not able to be traced and not known to be dead. 3. go missing. to become lost or disappear Time is running out for James Dent. On the trail of missing singer Billy K, his team has exhausted every lead. The investigation has cost Dent his marriage, his home and possibly his job. All he has left is his instinct, and a copy of 'Show Me the Sky' - the book Billy was reading when he vanished. With only the clothes on his back, Dent himself disappears. He believes he can solve this case alone. He can have little idea where this journey will take him. From the love letter of a motorcyclist sranded in central Australia, to the back streets and brothels of Mombasa, Dent begins to wonder if he is trailing a man, a ghost or himself. Mystery, adventure, historical voyage, and journey of discovery - Show Me the Sky is an unforgettable ride.

About this title

About the Author

Nicholas Hogg was born in Leicester in 1974. After studying psychology, he travelled widely, living in Japan, Fiji and America and he taught literacy skills to refugees in London. In 2005 he won the New Writing Ventures prize for fiction. Show Me The Sky is his first novel.

From Booklist

This ambitious first novel by British writer Hogg moves back and forth in time and across several continents, offering multiple narrative strands and characters. The novel’s central arc follows Detective James Dent, who has spent the last year on the hunt for missing British rock star Billy K. Obsessed with the case, Dent abandons his job to track a final, desperate lead in Australia. Intercut with the hunt are passages from a journal Billy K was reading when he was last spotted. It contains the writing of nineteenth-century Fijian missionary Nelson Babbage, whose vivid rendering of colonial oppression forms the backbone of Hogg’s themes of identity and assimilation. Other narrative strands follow motorcycle rider Cal and the touching letters he pens to his girlfriend while slowly dying in the Australian Outback, and an exhausted teenage runaway who appears to be the teenage incarnation of Detective Dent. There is so much going on plotwise that the story never quite gels, yet its hybrid nature—it’s part thriller, part historical novel—and confident writing make for an intriguing read. --Joanne Wilkinson

About this edition

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1847671586
• ISBN 13: 9781847671585
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320