Valérie Malfoy Knihy

A bullet to the brain abruptly halted a terrified young woman's desperate flight. In her pocket is the name of a policeman whose own life was brutally invaded, mercilessly shaken, and very nearly erased -- a policeman who has since gone missing. The dead woman in the car had been running from something -- but she didn't run far or fast enough. Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot would like to question the man the victim was apparently racing to meet: Annie's superior -- and former lover -- Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks. But Banks has vanished into the anonymous chaos of the city, drawn into a mad whirl of greed, inhumanity, and death, by a frantic phone call from the brother he no longer knows. Banks is unaware that the threads connecting a sinister kidnapping with a savage slaying are as thick as rope . . . and long enough for a haunted and broken rogue cop to hang himself.

Smithson Ide's life so far has led him nowhere. He's 43 years old, weighs 279 pounds, and keeps himself numb with food and alcohol. His only emotional ties are to his parents and to the memory of his older sister, Bethany, who has been missing for 20 years. Then his parents die in a car crash and he learns of Bethany's death in LA County. Suddenly there isn't enough beer in the world to keep Smithy from his feelings. Drunk and bereft, he takes his old Raleigh bicycle and starts cycling. Once he starts, he can't stop and then he's riding across America to recover his sister. Along the way he meets all sorts of people who help or hinder him. He hears the confession of a priest, he rescues a boy from a snow storm, he has a gun pointed in his face, he's hit by a truck and helps a man dying of AIDS. Smithy's ride is an extraordinary quest, to rediscover the past and memories of Bethany, but it's also his journey back to life.

De l'amour éternel à l'inconstance et à la fragilité des sentiments, Greg Hrbek, étonnante découverte de la jeune littérature américaine, saisit, comme autant de fils entrelacés, toute l'intimité et l'intensité d'une liaison brûlante d'émotion et de désir. À travers l'histoire trouble de Tom et Lindsey, deux amants réunis par un passé commun lourd de secrets, La Chute du zeppelin à la nuit tombée nous parle de la passion charnelle et des irrésistibles élans du coeur, de nos rêves d'adolescents et de nos compromis. « Magnétique. » Publishers Weekly « Un portrait subtil, original et émouvant de l'angoisse contemporaine. » Kirkus Review « On songe à Armistead Maupin. » Time Out