The Double

he Double centers on a government clerk who goes mad. It deals with the internal psychological struggle of its main character, Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, who repeatedly encounters someone who is his exact double in appearance but confident, aggressive, and extroverted, characteristics that are the polar opposites to those of the toadying "pushover" protagonist. The motif of the novella is a doppelg nger (Russian "dvoynik"), known throughout the world in various guises such as the fetch.

Watching a rented video, Tertuliano Maximo Afonso is shocked to notice that one of the actors is identical to him in every physical detail. What begins as curiosity quickly hardens into obsession. Tertuliano tracks down his double, only to find a man whose existence destabilises his own identity entirely. Saramago's novel explores the nature of individuality and examines the fear and insecurity that arise when our singularity comes under threat. For in this tense psychological literary thriller, the discovery of a double does not divide one life into two, it reveals that it was never singular to begin with.

he Double centers on a government clerk who goes mad. It deals with the internal psychological struggle of its main character, Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, who repeatedly encounters someone who is his exact double in appearance but confident, aggressive, and extroverted, characteristics that are the polar opposites to those of the toadying "pushover" protagonist. The motif of the novella is a doppelg nger (Russian "dvoynik"), known throughout the world in various guises such as the fetch.

Watching a rented video, Tertuliano Maximo Afonso is shocked to notice that one of the actors is identical to him in every physical detail. What begins as curiosity quickly hardens into obsession. Tertuliano tracks down his double, only to find a man whose existence destabilises his own identity entirely. Saramago's novel explores the nature of individuality and examines the fear and insecurity that arise when our singularity comes under threat. For in this tense psychological literary thriller, the discovery of a double does not divide one life into two, it reveals that it was never singular to begin with.

Every man has his dark side... Spero Lucas confronts his own in an explosive thriller from the writer of the award-winning THE WIRE. Spero Lucas is a young Iraq war vet now working as a PI in Washington DC. He's hired by a young woman to find a painting she lost after being scammed by a super-smooth con-artist. Spero tracks the painting down, but the con-artist is part of a team of ruthless thugs, and the woman who hired Spero is brutally attacked as a warning to stay away. The warning doesn't work. Spero is angry and he goes on the offensive, taking out the gang one by one. But where do Spero's remorseless killings sit on the morality scale? Is he defending an innocent woman? Or have his experiences of war turned him into a ruthless killer, no better than the crooks he's up against?

Every man has his dark side... Spero Lucas confronts his own in an explosive thriller from the writer of the award-winning THE WIRE. Spero Lucas is a young Iraq war vet now working as a PI in Washington DC. He's hired by a young woman to find a painting she lost after being scammed by a super-smooth con-artist. Spero tracks the painting down, but the con-artist is part of a team of ruthless thugs, and the woman who hired Spero is brutally attacked as a warning to stay away. The warning doesn't work. Spero is angry and he goes on the offensive, taking out the gang one by one. But where do Spero's remorseless killings sit on the morality scale? Is he defending an innocent woman? Or have his experiences of war turned him into a ruthless killer, no better than the crooks he's up against?