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The Case of the Imaginary Detective
The Case of the Imaginary Detective
Sep 10, 2025 4:52 PM

Author:Karen Joy Fowler

The Case of the Imaginary Detective

A brilliantly comic and intelligent literary mystery from Karen Joy Fowler, the bestselling Man Booker shortlisted author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Rima Lanisell has a habit of losing things - car keys, sunglasses, lovers, family members. Following the death of Rima's father, she goes to stay with her godmother Addison, a wildly successful, albeit eccentric, mystery writer. Addison's beach house seems the place to make sense of Rima's loss, yet she is soon caught up in a mystery of her own. Who stole a small and highly valuable object from Addison's kitchen? Why is Rima corresponding with an obsessive fan, using someone else's family name? Most importantly: what exactly was the relationship between Addison and Rima's father, and why did Addison name a murderer after him in one of her novels?

Karen Joy Fowler is the author of Sister Noon, Sarah Canary, The Sweetheart Season, The Jane Austen Book Club, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves and the short story collection Black Glass. She is a PEN/Faulkner prize finalist, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2014 and lives in California.

Reviews

The Deadly Assassin marks another hit from a range that continues to reward the listener. These audiobooks are often like revisiting an old friend you've lost touch with, and are reminded of all the great qualities they possess.

—— Mark Wright , Doctor Who Magazine

This is a book designed to be taken out into the world... Patient, cogent and an exquisite thinker, Oz is a rare blast of sanity and intelligence. Read, learn and take heart

—— Guardian

A bloodless victory over fanaticism

—— The Times

Nobody has chronicled modern Israel more faithfully than Amos Oz, and these bleak vignettes of village life in a country riddled with anxiety find him at his unsparing best

—— Sally Cousins , Sunday Telegraph

Amos Oz is the voice of sanity coming out of confusion

—— Nadine Gordimer

Invaluable because of his wisdom and the passionate nature of his engagement

—— Tracey Thorn , New Statesman

Oz’s cool, measured prose accumulates into a sense of uncertainty in a collection whose portentous ambience is resonant of the unnerving, fabular fiction of Magnus Mills or Haruki Murakami

—— James Urquhart , Financial Times

Excellent

—— William Leith , Evening Standard

Invaluable because of his wisdom and the passionate nature of his engagement and his sane effort to find the outlines of an agreement in the Middle East

—— Colm Tóibín , New Statesman

This brief but resonant book collects the novelist Amos Oz's lectures on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict... Sometimes he is so careful not to say anything that would offend either side that he ends up saying very little at all. But perhaps it is that very tact, that respect for the other, that constitutes his most eloquent response to the fanatic

—— David Evans , Independent on Sunday

Woven together, these “texts” reflect the catastrophe of the times and meditate on the meaning of integrity, truth, love and ethics when confronted with horror. It is an extraordinary novel

—— Isabel Hilton , Observer

As a reader, you close the book with a profound sense of how ideology has permeated and changed very sector of collective human life, from trivial daily matters to the great ruptures of history

—— Xiaolu Guo , Guardian

A powerful satire on ideology, veering between the grotesque and the horrific

—— Ángel Gurría­-Quintana , Financial Times

I would absolutely recommend this to individual readers and reading groups alike. It’s not an easy read considering the subject matter but it is a very good one.

—— Eleanor King , Nudge

Wonderfully well written and hard to believe this is James Hannah's debut novel. Very early on I felt this was going to be a book I loved and I was right.

—— bakeysbookblog.blogspot.co.uk

Sad and funny in equal measure but also quite uplifting about the power of the human spirit. An author who I am sure will continue to go from strength to strength.

—— @jaffareadstoo

This book broke my heart.

—— handwrittengirl.com

This is a really engrossing, interesting read and a book I just couldn't put down.

—— tealadymumbles.co.uk

The story is sad, yet it is uplifting. The characters are flawed, yet human. I was very impressed by this novel. It is a delight to read and to recommend to others.

—— randomthingsthroughmyletterbox.blogspot.co.uk

I was completely sucked into this book and flew through the pages. I loved it.

—— www.cosybooks.com

This book has moved me and it has changed me, and isn't that what it is all about? It is only March and I don't know if anything will top this one this year for me. Essential reading.

—— reflectionsofareader.blogspot.co.uk

Take Trainspotting, cut out the swearing, and add a filter of nuanced meditations on love: welcome to The A to Z of You and Me. I absolutely loved this book.

—— sarahjasmon.com

'David Nicholls' school of commercial fiction. An accomplished piece of fiction, both entertaining and thought-provoking

—— alifeinbooks.co.uk

Spare, poignant and with a quirky charm all of its own, it reminds us how kind people can be

—— RACHEL JOYCE

Wonderful and heartbreaking.

—— CLAIRE FULLER, Desmond Elliott Prize winner 2015

Hannah writes with emotional acuity. Warm, wry, thoughtful and devastating in places, this is a life-enhancing missive from death's door.

—— The Sunday Times

The most richly fruited post-modern novel since Jeanette Winterson’s Sexing the Cherrys

—— Marcus Field , Independent

A bold, impressive debut

—— 4 stars , Daily Telegraph

As a debut novel, it is truly dazzling and Hermione Eyre has proved herself an author well worth watching out for

—— Susannah Perkins , Nudge

Profoundly moving

—— Country Life
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