Risk

Recently divorced New Zealander Sam Nola returns to London, where he spent two years in his early twenties. It is early 2003, and on both sides of the Atlantic the case for military intervention in Iraq is being made - or fabricated. But life for Sam has never been a grown-up, half-French daughter from a long-ago affair has recently got in touch, and he has walked into a lucrative role in the booming banking sector. It is only when he learns of the deaths of two friends within a week that intrigue begins to intrude on his contentment and life begins to feel a little more precarious.

C.K. Stead is the renowned author of poetry, literary criticism, short stories, and of novels such as Smith’s Dream and My Name Was Judas. He was awarded the C.B.E. for services to New Zealand literature. Stead retired as professor emeritus of English at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in order to devote himself full-time to his career as a writer of prose fiction.