The Woman In The Fifth

Dec 29, 2025 12:51 PM

Author:Douglas Kennedy

Harry Ricks is a man who has lost everything.

A romantic mistake at the small American college where he used to teach has cost him his job and his marriage. And when the ensuing scandal threatens to completely destroy him, he flees to Paris.

He arrives in the French captial in the bleak midwinter, and ends up having to work as a night guard to make ends meet. Then Margit, a beautiful, mysterious stranger, walks into his life. But their passionate and intense relationship triggers a string of inexplicable events, and soon Harry finds himself in a nightmare from which there is no easy escape.

Reviews

Nail-bitingly compulsive... A thumping good read. Kennedy has done it again

—— The Times

An extraordinary tour de force

—— Mail on Sunday

I ended up missing my stop to finish it

—— Daily Telegraph

Classic Kennedy... extraordinarily compelling... Kennedy handles a morally complex, yet also surprisingly satisfying, ending with consummate skill, proving what a master he is

—— Daily Mirror

A grim, claustrophobic atmosphere is layered with sleazy transactions and the emotional flaws of the characters. It's all neatly captured in Kennedy's sharp, shoot-from-the-hip prose

—— Independent on Sunday

Douglas Kennedy is back with another of his intriguing, beautifully written page-turners

—— Elle

A genius . . . Elusive, delicate but lasting

—— Alan Ayckbourn

P.G. Wodehouse is the gold standard of English wit

—— Christopher Hitchens

To dive into a Wodehouse novel is to swim in some of the most elegantly turned phrases in the English language

—— Ben Schott

Wodehouse is so utterly, properly, simply funny

—— Adele Parks

I've recorded all the Jeeves books, and I can tell you this: it's like singing Mozart. The perfection of the phrasing is a physical pleasure. I doubt if any writer in the English language has more perfect music

—— Simon Callow

Wodehouse was quite simply the Bee's Knees. And then some

—— Joseph Connolly

I constantly find myself drooling with admiration at the sublime way Wodehouse plays with the English language

—— Simon Brett

Quite simply, the master of comic writing at work

—— Jane Moore

To pick up a Wodehouse novel is to find oneself in the presence of genius - no writer has ever given me so much pure enjoyment

—— John Julius Norwich

Compulsory reading for anyone who has a pig, an aunt - or a sense of humour!

—— Lindsey Davis

The Wodehouse wit should be registered at Police HQ as a chemical weapon

—— Kathy Lette

Witty and effortlessly fluid. His books are laugh-out-loud funny

—— Arabella Weir

The funniest writer ever to put words to paper

—— Hugh Laurie

The greatest comic writer ever

—— Douglas Adams

P.G. Wodehouse wrote the best English comic novels of the century

—— Sebastian Faulks

Sublime comic genius

—— Ben Elton

You don't analyse such sunlit perfection, you just bask in its warmth and splendour

—— Stephen Fry

The Everyman edition promises to be a splendid celebration of the divine Plum

—— The Independent

The handsome bindings are only the cherry on top of what is already a cake without compare

—— Evening Standard

You don't analyse such sunlit perfection, you just bask in its warmth and splendour

—— Stephen Fry

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