The Stranger Game. Peter Gadol

      

Praise for The Stranger Game

      ‘An enigmatic novel … a metaphysical thriller’

      Edmund White

      ‘Like the best of Highsmith and Hitchcock rolled into one’

      Marisa Silver

      ‘Beautiful, thoughtful meditation on the invisible ties that bind us-even to strangers’

       Kirkus Reviews

      ‘Engrossing…. Those with a taste for the offbeat will find this well worth reading’

       Publishers Weekly

      ‘A phenomenal mystery novel filled with action and a story line that makes you think about human interaction’

       The Oklahoman

      ‘This is Patricia Highsmith-style suspense, edgy and a little dreamy, with a sense of uncertainty lurking everywhere’

       Booklist

      ‘A fun, moody, twisty thriller, with a sun-touched, West Coast vibe…as much Joan Didion as Patricia Highsmith’

      Scott Smith

      ‘“Following” gets a whole new meaning in Peter Gadol’s stylish psychological thriller’

      Janet Fitch

      PETER GADOL is the author of seven novels including The Stranger Game, Silver Lake, Light at Dusk, and The Long Rain. His work his been translated for foreign editions and appeared in literary journals, including StoryQuarterly, the Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly Journal, and Tin House. Gadol lives in Los Angeles, where he is Chair and Professor of the MFA Writing program at Otis College of Art and Design.

Also by Peter Gadol

       Coyote

       The Mystery Roast

       Closer to the Sun

       The Long Rain

       Light at Dusk

       Silver Lake

       The Stranger Game

       Peter Gadol

      ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES

Copyright

      An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

      First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019

      Copyright © Peter Gadol 2019

      Peter Gadol asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Ebook Edition © September 2019 ISBN: 978-1-474-09297-5

Note to Readers

      This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:

       Change of font size and line height

       Change of background and font colours

       Change of font

       Change justification

       Text to speech

       Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9781848457690

       For Chris

       Somehow never strangers

      Contents

       Cover

PRAISE

       About the Author

Booklist

       Title Page

COPYRIGHT

NOTE TO READERS

       Dedication

Part 1

       Part 2

       Part 3

       Part 4

       Part 5

       ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

       ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

1

      THE FIRST TIME I FOLLOWED ANYONE WAS ON A SUNDAY afternoon in late November, the sky still gray with ash some weeks after a wildfire to the north. I had gone out on a hike, hoping to clear my mind by scrambling up the narrow path of a dry canyon, which worked until I walked the down trail back to my car. As I was driving out of the park, I passed a picnic area where there was a party underway, a birthday celebration with a hacked-at piñata twirling off a low branch, smoke rising from blackened grills, balloons tethered to the benches. At the periphery, I noticed a little boy, himself a balloon in a red, round jacket and red, round pants. He didn’t seem to be the center of attention, so I didn’t think he was the birthday boy. He must have been about three. He was tossing an inflated ball, also red, back and forth to his