Author(s): Shonagh Koea

New Zealand Fiction

The celebrated author of gentle despair and stylish horror takes a picaresque and light-hearted tilt at prostitution, the Mafia, real estate and the supernatural. Lydia, a gorgeous blonde of uncertain age and some remnant of beauty, has for several years been the chief entertainer at the Cote d'Azure, a high-class brothel of splendid architecture and decoration. Her sad and disorderly history is explored here in this ironical and richly adverbial novel of the mores and manners of the twenty-first century. The glittering cast of characters includes the viciously untasteful Kevin Crumlatch and his pathetic wife Moira, who spends much of her time reading New Age inspirational literature while wearing dirty slippers. This tongue-in-cheek urban fairytale hovers over the home of a group of disconsolate and eccentric ghosts, all former owners of the house, who are deeply upset by untalented flower arrangements, tasteless furniture, domestic disharmony, dislocated shoulders and lack of sex.