AustLit

'There are times in your life when something happens, after which you're never the same. It may be something direct or indirect, or something someone says to you. But whatever it is, there is no going back.

'Paris: 1989. Recently retired police inspector Auguste Jovert receives a letter from a woman who claims to be his daughter. Two days later, a stranger comes knocking on his door…

'Set in France and Japan, The Snow Kimono tells the stories of Jovert, former Professor of Law Tadashi Omura, and his one-time friend the writer Katsuo Ikeda. All three have lied to themselves, and to each other. Their lies are about to catch up with them.

'A quarter of a century after the award-winning bestseller Out of the Line of Fire, Mark Henshaw returns with an intricately plotted, beautifully written novel that is both a psychological thriller and an unforgettable meditation on love and loss, memory and its deceptions, and the ties that bind us to others.' (Publication summary)

'To an Australian writer visiting Heidelberg, the brilliant young philosophy student Wolfi is a compelling character. From the start, the details of Wolfi's life are curious - from his inquisitorial father and passionate mother to the grandmother who pays for his sexual initiation with a prostitute and to his connections with the outlandish rogue Karl.

'As we are lured by Wolfi's obsession into the mysterious and erotic maze of this novel, we find nothing is as it appears.

'What in fact is fact and what in fiction is fiction?' (Publication summary)