The sunny Canary Island of Fuerteventura is the seemingly innocuous setting for Thomas Rydahl’s debut novel.
Through the author’s eyes, we glimpse an alternative side to holiday paradise, where half-empty bars and desolate beaches provide the backdrop for a dark and complex tale of murder, loneliness and fear of ageing.
After the body of a three-month-old baby is found in the boot of a crashed car, disaffected loner Erhard – the hermit of the title – determines to track down the murderer.
Adrift from society and knowing nothing of mobile phones, the internet or social media, he faces an uphill struggle to uncover the truth.
Rydahl is an established literary translator in his Danish homeland, where The Hermit stormed the bestselling charts and earned comparisons to Graham Greene for its economical prose and merciless exposure of human weakness.
Unpredictable and in places, shocking, it’s an ideal tale to curl up with on dark winter nights.
