Tony and Susan

In an increasingly competitive book market, Tony & Susan does not look like the kind of book that publishers would take a chance on. First published to good reviews but negligible sales in 1993, Austin Wright's novel sank without trace. But thanks to the persistence of one editor, it has finally been given the treatment it deserves. No longer a lost classic, a new generation of readers now have the opportunity to experience this superb, clever and absorbing novel.

The premise is simple: Susan receives the manuscript of a novel written by her ex-husband, Edward Sheffield. She was, he says in his letter, always his best critic and reader. And so, over the course of three nights, Susan begins to read Edward's dark thriller, along the way telling her own story, and the story of the breakdown of their marriage.

The two narratives weave brilliantly together, leaving the reader stampeding towards the climax. But there is far more to this book than suspense and a tightly controlled narrative. This a book about the nature of reading, of what we expect from fiction and what we expect from the people we love. As such its resurrection should be congratulated and celebrated.