Low Life

When Simon Johnson is attacked in his crummy LA apartment, he knows he must defend himself or die. Turning on the lights after the scuffle, Simon realises two things: one, he has killed his attacker; two, the resemblance of the man to himself is uncanny. Over the coming days, Simon�s lonely life will spiral out of control. With his pet goldfish Francine in tow, he embarks on a gripping existential investigation, into his own murky past, and that of Jeremy Shackleford, the (apparently) happily married math teacher whose body is now lying in Simon�s bathtub under forty gallons of ice. But Simon has a plan. Gradually, he begins to assume the dead man�s identity, fooling Shackleford�s colleagues, and even his beautiful wife. However, when mysterious messages appear on the walls around Simon�s apartment, he realises that losing his old self will be more difficult than he�d imagined. Everything points to a long forgotten date the previous spring, when his life and Shackleford�s first collided. As the contradictions mount, and the ice begins to melt, the events of the past year will resolve themselves in the most catastrophic way. Combining gritty noir, psychological drama and dazzling plotting, Low Life is a shocking novel that announces Jahn as a brilliant new voice of modern America. Review "Armed with a seat-of-the-pants plot that takes some audacious risks and prose that proves gritty and gruelling, Jahn has produced a thriller with a steely death-grip. I walked into a tree reading it; no greater recommendation needed."� � Financial Times "Well-written, fast-paced . . . along the order of Quentin Tarantino and with a long and bloody trail to the end."� �Charlaine Harris, author, the Sookie Stackhouse series About the Author Ryan David Jahn published his first novel, the CWA John Creasey Dagger-winning Acts of Violence , in 2009, and has since published two others, Low Life and The Dispatcher . He lives in Lousville, Kentucky. 'This is the first book I've read in two years that has caused me to sit up until the early hours to finish it, and the denouement was as satisfying as those in Earthly Powers , Presumed Innocent , The New City , The Bonfire Of The Vanities , The Deptford Trilogy or any of the other novels that have induced me to start drinking coffee after midnight' Dylan Jones GQ on The Dispatcher A chilling thriller repackaged in the new brand look Promotional campaign in place for a Ryan David Jahn moment in summer 2012