The blindman's hat - Bernard Cohen

Winner, Australian/Vogel Literary Award 1996 \paraJoint Winner, Best Young Australian Novelist, Sydney Morning Herald 1998 \para\paraVernon is an expatriate Australian journalist working in Manhattan for a quality New York daily and Dida is a freelance mobile telephone technician. Muffy is their little white dog, and the world's cutest urban philosopher. When Vernon falls so deeply in love with Dida he stops going to work to be with her, they could not have predicted his former employers would ask, plead, beg, threaten, kidnap and probably even murder to convince Vernon to return to the workplace.\paraVernon, Dida and Muffy determine to get to the bottom of all this. They search through dodgy Wall Street transactions, oppressive correspondence, muffled answering machine messages and undertake good twin/bad twin routines and failed hypnotherapy in their search for the truth. In the rare quiet moments, Vernon worries about his dwindling Australianness.\para\paraThe Blindman's Hat is Paul Auster with added exuberant silliness, Sara Paretsky stuffed full of red herrings, and Herge overcome by lust.\para\para'Refreshingly paranoid ' Brian Castro