Exquisitely written and utterly compelling' SUSAN BARKER
'The soul of a stylish mystery and the pace of an old-fashioned thriller' MOHAMMED HANIF
'Elegant, edgy and cinematic' EMMA CLAIRE SWEENEY
Anna has never met anybody like Loll: a British hostess at the Moonglow bar in the Japanese city of Osaka. With her blonde wigs and shimmering dresses, Loll cuts a mesmerising figure. But Anna is troubled by the secrets Loll hides; the identity of her best client with shadowy links to the city's crime underworld; and the sight Anna witnesses one afternoon: Loll teetering on the edge of a railway track, caught in the deafening rush as a train hurtles by.
Whereas Anna has come to Osaka to learn more about her half-Japanese heritage, Loll has no clear reason for being there and no easily discernible past. And so when she disappears, there are only the barest clues as to where she might have gone. Soon Anna is thrown onto a trail that will take her into the darkest corners of the neon-choked metropolis - hidden, forbidden places from which those who know the city best warn her to stay away. A dazzling literary suspense novel that plunges readers into the nightlife of Osaka, where a young hostess's disappearance initiates a dangerous pursuit through the city's criminal underworld A TINY SPECK OF BLACK AND THEN NOTHING won the Lucy Cavendish Annual Fiction Prize, where the judges including Adele Geras, Sophie Hannah and Allison Pearson dubbed it 'fascinating.' Tracy Chevalier described it as 'an intriguing glimpse at the dubious world of nightclub hostessing. This was fascinating stuff.' It has also been named a runner-up in both the SI Leeds Literary Prize and the Yeovil Literary Prize and longlisted for the Mslexia Novel Competition.
