The Case of the Imaginary Detective

A young woman's search for the truth about her father's past . . .

Rima Lanisell has a habit of losing things, car keys, sunglasses, lovers, family members. Following the death of Rima's father, she goes to stay with her godmother Addison, a wildly successful, albeit eccentric, mystery writer. Addison's beach house seems the place to make sense of Rima's loss, yet she is soon caught up in a mystery of her own.

A brilliantly comic and intelligent literary mystery from Karen Joy Fowler, the bestselling Man Booker shortlisted author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Rima Lanisell has a habit of losing things - car keys, sunglasses, lovers, family members. Following the death of Rima's father, she goes to stay with her godmother Addison, a wildly successful, albeit eccentric, mystery writer. Addison's beach house seems the place to make sense of Rima's loss, yet she is soon caught up in a mystery of her own. Who stole a small and highly valuable object from Addison's kitchen? Why is Rima corresponding with an obsessive fan, using someone else's family name? Most importantly: what exactly was the relationship between Addison and Rima's father, and why did Addison name a murderer after him in one of her novels?

Karen Joy Fowler is the author of Sister Noon, Sarah Canary, The Sweetheart Season, The Jane Austen Book Club, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves and the short story collection Black Glass. She is a PEN/Faulkner prize finalist, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2014 and lives in California.