Obsession and mystery in Porty's seedy side

The Existential Detective, by Alice Thompson, is published by Two Ravens Press, priced £9.99

WORKING among the brothels, nightclubs and amusement arcades of Portobello, private detective William Blake is hired to investigate the whereabouts of a scientist's missing wife.

But as he sets about the task, he finds himself entangled in layers of deceptions and disappearances that lead him back to an unsolved mystery in his own past – the loss of his ten-year-old daughter Emily.

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As he develops an obsession with a nightclub singer, there are sightings of the missing wife, along with tortuous memories of his past and new visions of his daughter.

Edinburgh writer Alice Thompson, who lives in Portobello, has created a surreal and dreamlike story which will thrill fans of her previous work – a return to style and a subversion of the crime fiction genre she is loved for.

Thompson was born and raised in the city and was the keyboard player with the post-punk 1980s' band The Woodentops.

She was joint winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for her first novel, Justine, while her second, Pandora's Box, was shortlisted for the Stakis prize for Scottish Writer of the Year.

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