Armadillo - William Boyd

'A young man not much over thirty, tall with ink-dark hair and a serious-looking, fine-featured but pallid face, went to keep a business appointment and discovered a hanged man'

Lorimer Black - young, good-looking, but with a somewhat troubled expression - does not understand why his world is being torn apart, though he does know that for the most part it is made up of bluster and hypocrisy. His business, trying to keep insurance companies from paying out the money they've promised, is a con game run with the protection of the law. One winter's morning, Lorimer goes to keep a perfectly routine business appointment and finds a hanged man. A bad start to the day, by any standards, and an ominous portent of things to come.

PENGUIN STREET ART: Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd / Armadillo by William Boyd/ And The Ass Saw the Angel by Nick Cave / What a Carve Up by Jonathan Coe/ Americana by Don DeLillo/ Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris/ The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid/ The Believers by Zoe Heller/ How to Be Good by Nick Hornby/ Lights out for the Territory by Iain Sinclair