So He Takes the Dog

On a beach in southern England, a dog returns to its owner with a human hand in its mouth: so begins this unforgettable new novel from the author of Ghost MacIndoe and Invisible. The hand belongs to Henry, the homeless eccentric who has been wandering the south-west of England for the last thirty years, most recently living rough in the town. The local policeman and his accomplice, in piecing together his movements prior to his death, talking to those who knew and watched him, uncover an extraordinary life. But their investigations tellingly shed light on the town itself, and the story of Henry and those who tell it begins to affect the narrator-policeman’s own life in ways he never expected. This is a detective story like no other, a novel that further confirms Jonathan Buckley as one of the finest novelists at work in this country.