Shalimar the Clown
The Man Booker Prize (nominee)
Whitbread Prize (nominee)
International IMPAC Dublin Literary Awards (nominee)
Los Angeles, 1991. Ambassador Maximilian Ophuls, one of the makers of the modern world, is murdered in broad daylight on his illegitimate daughter India's doorstep, slaughtered by a knife wielded by his Kashmiri Muslim driver, a myscerious figure who calls himself Shalimar the clown. The dead man is a World War II Resistance hero, a man of formidable intellectual ability and much erotic appeal, a former US ambassador to India and subsequently America's counter-terrorism chief. The murder looks at first like a political assassination, but turns out to be passionately personal. This is the story of Max, his killer, and his daughter – and of a fourth character, the woman who links them, whose story finally explains them all. It is an epic narrative that moves from California to Kashmir, France and England, and back to California again. Along the way there are tales of prince...
Number of pages: 521
Reading time: 8 h. 41 min.
Formats: FB2, EPUB, PDF