The Crime of Julian Wells
A Novel
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
From the Edgar Award–winning author of Red Leaves: An “intelligent and elegant” thriller in the grand tradition of Eric Ambler and Graham Greene (The Wall Street Journal).
When the body of famed true-crime writer Julian Wells is found in a boat drifting on a Montauk pond, the question is not how he died, but why? Philip Anders, Wells’s best friend and literary executor, vows to find out what drove the enigmatic author to take his own life.
The first clue is a map of Argentina that Wells had been examining on the day he died. Years ago, he and Anders made a fateful trip to Buenos Aires, where their tour guide was a woman named Marisol. Her subsequent disappearance during Argentina’s Dirty War haunted the author. Had he discovered some new clue to her fate? Was he planning to return to South America? And what, if anything, does Marisol’s disappearance have to do with the curious dedication in Wells’s first book: “For Philip, sole witness to my crime”?
Anders soon finds himself on a journey into his friend’s haunted, secret life. Spanning four decades and traversing three continents, The Crime of Julian Wells is a “spellbinding” tour-de-force from one of America’s most acclaimed suspense novelists (Publishers Weekly).
“[A] striking example of a suspense writer working at the top of his form, and an agreeable diversion for those who enjoy a bit of style with their substance . . . Cook’s characterizations are richly balanced and finely nuanced.” —Los Angeles Times
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The suicide of unhappy true crime writer Julian Wells propels this spellbinding thriller from Edgar-winner Cook (The Quest for Anna Klein). As literary critic Philip Anders tries to piece together his closest friend's final days, Philip discovers that Julian may have been planning to return to Argentina, where years earlier, on a visit, the pair met a young woman, Marisol, whose subsequent disappearance haunted Julian. It's obvious that Julian never stopped searching for Marisol, and as Philip follows his trail, he wonders how much Julian really knew and whether guilt for an unknown transgression fueled his lifelong sorrow. Cook threads the narratives of Julian's unsettling oeuvre throughout Philip's increasingly obsessive journey to unearth the reason behind his friend's decision to end his life. The stories of real-life criminals from a 17th-century Hungarian countess with a penchant for torture to notorious Soviet-era serial killer Andrei Chikatilo, the subject of Julian's last manuscript add to the aura of unease.
