Chris Power's intelligent first novel is based in Berlin and follows Robert, a forty something writer desperate for inspiration, who finds it in the story of Patrick, a man whom he comes across in the street. What follows is a book of many strands, featuring Russian spies and suicides. There are a few too many strands but the writing is terrific.

Two British men meet at a writers’ talk in Berlin and fall into a kind of friendship. Patrick tells Robert (our protagonist) that he had ghost-written a book for a Russian oligarch, now dead, maybe by suicide, bit Patrick thinks maybe he was killed by Putin’s henchmen, and now they’re looking for Patrick. Robert doesn’t know if he believes this, but he’s been desperately looking for a plot for his next book and this sounds to him as if it has potential. So he starts trying to squeeze more details out of Patrick, while pretending he’s just offering a friendly ear. But is Patrick a fantasist, or is there real danger? This starts out well and then loses its way in the middle, and the rather silly ending destroys any remaining feeling of ambiguity. However, the basic writing skills are all there and I’d happily read another by him to see if he improves in terms of plotting.

I found this novel fascinating and didn't quite know what to think of it. It's very intrigue will lots of deception, half-truths and odd moments. But it's also clever and carefully crafted.

I picked this one up after I read an interview with the author, Chris Power. I don't normally read thrillers but I made an exception because I thought I might enjoy some light entertainment. The book turned out to be a real page-turner, and I've enjoyed Power's mastery of plot- and character-development.

Two expats meet by chance in Berlin - both writers. Later that night, one of them (Patrick) gets caught up in a fight, and the other one (Robert) saves him from further trouble. The two men hook up. It turns out that Patrick has an interesting story to tell, though not one Robert entirely believes. The story is about Russian oligarchs, murders dressed up as suicides, big money and Putin's corrupt Russia. As Patrick makes Robert his confidante, Robert discovers a source of inspiration for his book without any awareness of the risks that inevitably accompany such an endeavour.

I've noticed that the book has received mixed reviews here. I had mixed feelings myself at certain points. First of all, I don't think Putin's Russia can ever provide the same sense of excitement and curiosity as Stalin's or Brezhnev's Soviet Union, and therefore, a thriller about contemporary Russia will not carry the fascination that John le Carré's novels did. I believe the reason for that is that the Cold War was a collision between two worlds, two systematic theories, both of which drew passionate followers and devotees. What kind of passion can contemporary Russia incite? None! One can feel sorry for the dissidents who lose their lives or their freedom because of their opposition to Putin, and also some anger at the unwillingness of the West to properly investigate thinly deressed-up murders and call Putin to account, but that's all there is to it. The chapter 'Russia' seems closed for now, at least in terms of any world-historical significance, no matter how important this country may have been for the most part of 20th century.

It would be a mistake, though, to judge the book solely by its connection to Russian history and politics. Power is a masterful writer and this, in my view, comes through most clearly in the parts of the book that are not closely related to the plot. The account of a friend's of Robert's suicide and Robert's response to it was deft, delicate, compassionate and entirely believable. The very first chapter which sets the two main characters up was well-drawn and conveyed the Berlin atmosphere beautifully. The tension as Patrick becomes ever more fearful of his persecutors but Robert fails to trust the testimony of his own senses keeps the reader on edge throughout.

So, overall, yes, this is a book I would recommend to any thriller-lover, although I do feel that the golden age of the thriller has probably passed...

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy.

I really enjoyed Chris Power’s short story collection, Mothers, so I was excited to read his first novel.

A Lonely Man is the story of Robert, a writer living in Berlin, who meets a fellow writer, Patrick. Patrick tells him he was writing a biography of a Russian oligarch, who later turned up dead.

Robert becomes fascinated with Patrick’s story, and his paranoid about being followed, suspecting his oligarch had been murdered and he will be killed himself for his knowledge.

I’m not sure if this is a spoiler, but Robert decides to steal Patrick’s experience as the story for his next book.

It’s a short book, which moves around a lot between characters and perspectives, making the experience intentionally confusing. It’s unclear which bits are Robert, or Patrick, or Robert’s book.

There was a lot I liked about this and I like its tension-filled ending, but I almost wanted a little bit more.

3.5 stars

A writer struggling with his second book happens across a ghostwriter of celebrity autobiographies - with quite the story to tell. Hired to write the autobio of an exiled Russian oligarch - one of Putin’s many enemies - the oligarch has been found dead of an apparent suicide. But the ghostwriter is convinced that Putin is behind the death and that his assassins are hunting down all associates of the oligarch - and he’s next.

Chris Power’s debut novel A Lonely Man starts promisingly and has an intriguing premise but he doesn’t do enough to develop it into something more engaging. As a result my interest began to dip after the first act and kept going down until I was relieved to finish the book.

Power sets up the premise well and I enjoyed the initial meetings between Robert and Patrick. Robert’s a frustrated novelist, Patrick’s a man on the run - all well and good. But beyond learning about Patrick’s involvement with Russian politics, nothing further happens. What was the point of seeing Patrick get the job of ghostwriter when he already told us that’s what he was hired to do? It added nothing. Robert goes to a friend’s funeral, he goes to his Swedish holiday home to write, he contemplates an affair for no reason, there’s some suggestion of harassment from Russian goons - it’s precious little substance to make up nearly all of a novel.

I think Power was trying to create some ambiguity about whether or not Patrick was telling the truth or was making it up but I was never convinced he was a fantasist, which only made the ending all the more anticlimactic and flat. Also, Power attempted some feeble pontificating about the ethics of a writer writing about other people’s lives for their own gain which was neither clever or thoughtful.

The passages about the writing process itself were sorta interesting, the book is easy to read and is mostly well-written, and I liked the early scenes of the novel. But for a literary thriller it’s not very tense at all and painfully insubstantial. Also, Power has nothing new to say about the Putin regime that most people won’t already know/suspect (let alone those like me who’ve read entire books on the subject like Ben Mezrich’s Once Upon a Time in Russia) so it’s an extra-forgettable narrative!

It starts well but Chris Power unfortunately failed to realise any of the premise’s potential. A Lonely Man is an increasingly tedious and underwhelming literary thriller that leaves no impression behind whatsoever.

Taut and pared back thriller knowingly reminiscent of the classic Cold-war espionage genre. In a tale of morally ambiguous choices, Robert, a blocked writer, sees a chance encounter as an ideal opportunity to exploit a seemingly unstable stranger’s paranoia about and alienation from his former employer- a disenchanted Russian oligarch. This is a wonderfully mordant narrative that deals with questionable choices from those who believe in the value of their own integrity. Power interrogates the very notion of honour and how one’s sense of self can shift with the pressure to be the agent of one’s own story.

A wonderfully written literary novel with a plot that becomes more and more intriguing as it goes along. I enjoyed Power's elegant style and approach to the plot. Truly engrossing.

Like his story collection, Mothers, there's a lot to enjoy in Chris Power's novel. It captures Berlin, London and Sweden beautifully, as well as the self-indulgent difficulties of Robert, the central character's attempts to write the book that we are largely reading. Unlike other reviewers, I have no problem in reading books about writers and writing (isn't all writing about writing?) and was impressed by Power's combination of self-reflective novel and thriller. He does not interesting things with narrative perspective, changing viewpoint in mid-perspective, and if anything he could have taken this playfulness further for me. However, he does maintain the reader's interest in characters that could easily have become irritating. Impressive.

Robert lives in Berlin with his Swedish wife and two daughters. He has had one collection of short stories published is struggling to write a follow up novel. One day he meets a drunken Englishman, Patrick, in a bookshop and later on saves him from being beaten up. Patrick buys him a meal and begins to tell him an intriguing story - in which Patrick was commissioned to write the biography of a Russian oligarch, who is now dead. Patrick is convinced he was murdered and that Patrick himself is now being followed and is in danger.

Intrigued Robert begins to create a novel out of Patrick's story. So we have a novel about a novelist writing a novel drawn from real life. It is good in parts. Until I saw that Chris Power has published a collection of short stories (life imitates art once again) I thought that this must be a debut piece - sometimes gripping, particularly the beginning, but often not well written, with far too much irrelevant domestic detail and dull dialogue. And the analogies about the creative process of writing are too well-used to work well for me at least.

A Lonely Man is a novel about a writer in Berlin who becomes drawn into the life of a stranger he meets in a bookshop, who may or may not be being chased by Russians. Robert lives in Berlin with his wife and two daughters, where he spends his time trying and failing to write a follow up to his debut book of short stories. At an event in a bookshop, he meets Patrick, who seems drunk and unpredictable, but after he helps Patrick out, they meet for drinks and Robert discovers that Patrick is a ghostwriter for a recently-dead Russian oligarch. Robert doesn't believe Patrick is really in danger, but maybe his story could give Robert so much needed content for a novel.

The atmosphere of this novel really drew me in, with a vividly described Berlin and a real sense of this British man who still sees the novelty of living there (he does know much German, much less than his Swedish wife). At first, it was hard not to be like 'oh great, another novel about a writer struggling to write another book', and I think this feeling would've been worse if I knew that Chris Power is also known for writing a book of short stories, but after a while I got more engaged with the narrative, especially the way it stays mundane whilst also having underlying threat.

The narrative is broken up by sections that Robert has supposedly written as he turns Patrick's story into fiction, which both unfold the story (unreliably of course) and bring up questions about what is the truth and what writers can write about. It was quite apparent this was what the novel was going to engage with seeing as quite early on it becomes clear that Robert's short stories were mostly just anecdotes from other people he fictionalised. This did make the 'novel about a struggling writer' stereotype a little more palatable, as it brought up some questions about what people write about and even by implication if writers should write so many books that just fictionalise people they know (and, indeed, themselves).

Though I did enjoy reading A Lonely Man for the Berlin setting and the low level tension, it didn't do enough to subvert or play with the kind of novel it is, especially with a writer protagonist. There was a momentary flirting with having an affair which I didn't see why the novel needed, especially as most of the other narrative elements felt controlled and very much like they'd all been purposefully chosen for symmetry and comparison throughout the novel as a point about how writers turn stories into something better for fiction. Overall, I appreciated the execution (the sections of Robert's writing about Patrick were a bit dull, but necessary for the concept) and the atmosphere as a low key literary thriller and it had quite a noir feeling that I think people will enjoy.

I have to confess I didn’t get off to the best start with this book. This is for reasons entirely down to me and nothing to do with the book. You see, the main character in the book, Robert Prowe (shift the r to the end of the surname for a clue) is a writer with a collection of short stories behind him, one of which is about his family on a Greek holiday, who is currently writing his first novel. My immediate reaction is “Oh no, not another novel about writers and writing where the protagonist is a thinly veiled (or not so thinly, maybe) version of the author”. (The similarly named Richard Powers once wrote a novel in which an author called Richard Powers who had written the same first four books as, err, Richard Powers, was the protagonist, for example, but there are lots of other options to choose from).

That said, Chris Power has written a very readable story. I was amazed at how quickly the pages flew by and I comfortably read the whole 300+ page book in a single day (COVID lockdown helped a bit with this as I do have more reading time than normal at the moment).

In this story, Robert is in a bookshop and reaches for a book at the same time as another man who, it turns out, is also a writer. (What a lot of writers there are here). This man immediately goes on to disrupt a reading by another writer (see!) before leaving and being rescued by Robert and his wife from a brawl. Robert and the other man, Patrick, strike up an uneasy relationship and Robert becomes fascinated by the story Patrick tells him about Russian oligarchs and corruption. Robert sees fictionalising Patrick’s story as a way out of his writer’s block. He decides against asking Patrick’s permission for this which is another one of the writerly themes explored to a degree in the book.

As you might expect, Robert gradually gets sucked into Patrick’s story. And he becomes absorbed in his efforts to capture that story. Interestingly for the novel’s structure, the book segue’s seamlessly in and out of the story Robert is attempting to write. This doesn’t happen very often, though. Unfortunately, I don’t think Robert is, on this evidence, a very good writer and these bits of the book, despite being key to the plot of the story, somewhat lacklustre/cliched.

It’s an entertaining story to read. For a novel about people being trailed through cities, threatened by gangsters etc., it never generated any kind of tension for me. I enjoyed reading the book and, as I’ve said, the pages flew by really quickly, but, after a bit of a false start it never drew me in.

<i>"A writer is only as good as his material, you agree?"</i>

This is a thoughtful, intriguing novel - on one hand it reads like a homage to John le Carré (I also thought of <i>You Were Never Really Here</i>), and on the other hand it seems to be saying something about writing - the figure of the writer as vampire, as thief - and about the desire to escape, project, fantasise, escape, and obliterate. It's a clever idea for a novel - it has that thriller hook, but is also substantial in its thematic explorations. There's a nihilist streak in parts (specifically the MDMA outing, which is SOOO stressful to read!! My God, they must have felt AWFUL the next day!!) that reminded me of another 2021 book, <i>Nightshift</i> by Kiare Ladner, which is also narrated by a would-be writer who is craving freedom and escape from herself.

Some people might be like "oh it's so lazy to have a writer main character", which is fair. But I personally think it's a bit of a brave and risky choice, since it's a decision that is always going to inevitably get that criticism. I also think, for better or worse, a lot of people want to BE writers (and I find "being a writer" different from "wanting to write," but that's a different story). I think this is a useful desire to explore - why do so many of us want to BE someone else - to invent and construct fantasies? Why do so many people seem to want to BE writers, as opposed to readers? (And again, I distinguish "being a writer" - a public figure who is praised, admired - to "writing"!)

Anyway, I digress. Robert (the main character) is definitely someone who wants to be a writer - to be <i>seen</i> as a writer - but finds the actual writing quite difficult. In fact, he is finding it <i>"increasingly difficult to provide the required level of positivity about anyone wanting to write anything - but he couldn't say no to the money."</i> In the opening scene at a reading (which is deliciously satirical), he meets Patrick, a fellow British man and ghostwriter, who claims to be on the run from Russian oligarchs. And this is where the theme of writer-as-vampire comes in, as Robert decides to write Patrick's story for himself, something he's done in the past with previous fiction: <i>"As far as he was concerned, the story had become his the moment she told him it."</i>

There are some juicy Patricia Highsmith moments, as Robert experiences <i>"the eerie thrill of secret watching"</i> and the <i>"exquisite thrill"</i> of following Patrick throughout Berlin, which is well-evoked. Patrick's story is "told" to us via transcriptions from Robert's novel, and it's interesting that we never really know what is something Patrick told Robert, and what is Robert's embellishment. There are sojourns to Sweden, and a trip to London for a funeral. And Robert keeps working, keeps writing, imagining the success that Patrick's story will bring him: <i>"He idly imagined being interviewed about the book and telling this story about it."</i>

I will say there is a lot in the book about Russian oligarchs that I personally didn't find very interesting; it felt a bit too "reasearchy". I couldn't help but think of Trump, and that entire culture of criminality in which there is <i>"no verifiable truth, just rival versions of reality."</i>

I found the ending really good- chilling, even - with a deeply satisfying payoff. I was left with the feeling that what will happen to Robert next is inevitable, that he has written himself into a future from which there is now no escape. I also really liked the Chekhov-esque reflections that Robert has, about his purposeful construction of a secret double life:

<i>"Over the last two months he felt as if another person had grown up inside him, a shadow-self whose existence she knew nothing about. It made him feel ashamed, but part of him remained curious and wondered if he had the ability to sustain it; to live a hidden life. He could do anything, provided he had the nerve to twist and distort as necessary and could live with the dishonesty."</i>

Overall, a deeply enjoyable, gripping, and thought-provocative read that I read in a single sitting. Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.

Chris Power’s debut collection of short stories “Mothers” was well received, and the author has also carved out a niche for himself as an expert on the short story form with a regular “brief survey of the short story” column in the online Guardian. This is his debut novel.

And its protagonist is an English born writer – Robert, who has published a successful set of short stories but is now struggling badly for inspiration for the novel on which he has taken an advance. Robert, his Swedish wife Karijn and their two young daughters left London (taking advantage of the rise in London property prices – fueled of course at the top end by Russian oligarchs) for a new life in Berlin.

Robert in London was a copywriter but the property proceeds and book advance mean he is meant to be a full time writer – but while Karijn and the children settle quickly into Berlin, Robert’s rather self-pitying writer’s block (with perhaps an element of early-mid-life crisis) means he lacks a sense of belonging in the City, patience with his children and real connection with his rather embattled wife who at one point says “Write, don’t write but leave us out of the pity party. Can you do that? Can you be with us a little bit before you tell me, yet again, that your life is a disaster”

The book opens in a bookshop with he and another man reaching for the same book – we later find out Bolaño’s “Antwerp”). The other man identifies himself as a fellow writer before, rather the worse for drink, he disrupts a reading by a third author.

As an aside you will note the frequent references here in the opening scene to books and writing – this is a novel very self-consciously about writing.

When Robert and Karijn later save the same man – Patrick - from a drunken beating – Robert, struck by their similarities and keen to meet someone new, agrees to meet him. Immediately he is struck by the man’s mysterious manner and what, at first, strikes him as his rather implausible story.

Patrick is a ghostwriter who gained a rather infamous reputation for a best selling but rather too revelatory autobiography of a famous footballer and on the strength of that and/or (in almost all aspects Patrick’s story has at least two alternatives) via an old friend with contacts, he is approached with a small fortune to write the memoirs of a Russian baby-oligarch Sergei Vanyashin. But a year ago Vanyashin, a head of an independent news channel critical of the Putin regime and who then sought asylum in Britain, was found hanged in what the authorities claim was a suicide – Patrick believes it was a Russian state-sponsored murder and more to the point believes the same forces are now tracking him down to kill him.

Robert initially dismisses Patrick as a fantasist – but his own curious researchers into Putin-regime murders on exiled dissidents (which mirror some of the author’s own for the novel) pique his curiosity and more to the point he realises that Patrick’s story (which he gradually picks up over a series of meetings – meetings at which Patrick’s paranoia only grows) is exactly the basis he needs to write his novel (not that he asks Patrick’s permission).

The most innovative part of the novel is that it segues between Robert’s thoughts and actions and his conversations with Patrick – to lengthy sections which rather than being Robert’s reported speech, are actually Patrick’s draft novel. The writing in these sections changes to a rather simplistic thriller style as Patrick describes the excesses of his encounters with Vanyashin and his entourage of enforcers and his young model girlfriend.

We also have sections written in a Swedish lakeside holiday home that Robert and Karijn own; and rather morose trip back to London for the viewing/wake of an old copywriter friend whose death by suicide seems tragic rather than mysterious – the trip I think only revealing more to Robert his lack of any genuine or deep connection with those around him.

All the while Robert starts to doubt that Patrick’s fears about being followed and targetted were as paranoid as he first thought or that he himself is entirely immune from danger by association.

The author’s twitter profile starts “European writer” and a couple of the blurbs (by Ben Myers and David Hayden – both coincidentally 2018 Republic of Consciousness longlisted when I was a judge) refer to the work as “European”. And that was my sense also – or perhaps that the novel is consciously non-English.

Berlin is almost a character in the novel and described with affection; the UK by contrast is either the grey down at heel surrounds of the wake; or the overly indulged super rich excesses (but then combined with official unwillingness to act in the face of Putin’s provocations) of Patrick’s tales. The book has something of the European spy thriller, something of the Scandi-crime thriller/Nordic Noir and also makes deliberate reference to Bolaño’s self-referential tales of crime and drugs (an author Robert likes enough to have taken a pilgrimage to the small Catalan beach town where the author lived out his last days) – again contrasting them implicitly with the self-indulgent reading given by the young English writer in the book’s opening scene.

Overall I found this novel an easy-to-read, engrossing, very competently executed novel (it certainly does not read like a debut by a short story writer) but one that is perhaps a little too self-referential (someone on a Goodreads group I subscribe to asked if writers could be banned for a year in having writers as main characters) and one that despite its interesting theme of Putin regime corruption lacked any real impact on me. And while the bleeding of Robert’s novel in progress into this novel was slightly innovative it does mean that a large chunk of the book is effectively a non-literary thriller.