EBOOK
About
A lost little girl with a notebook and toy monkey appears on the CCTV screen of the Green Oaks shopping centre, evoking memories of junior detective, Kate Meaney, missing for twenty years. Kurt, a security guard with a sleep disorder and Lisa, a disenchanted deputy manager at Your Music, together become entranced by the little girl they keep glimpsing on the security cameras. As Kurt and Lisa's after-hours friendship grows in intensity, it brings new loss and new longing to light. Contents
1984
Falcon Investigations
2003
Voices in the Static
1984
Staying in the City
2004
The Lookout "Skewers our consumer society in all its absurdity and terrible sadness, while deftly interweaving a tender and heartbreaking personal narrative. A great debut novel from an awesomely talented writer."
-Jonathan Coe
"An exceptional, polyphonic novel of urban disaffection, written with humour and pathos. Kate's deceptively jaunty diary reveals a consumer-driven society choking on its own loneliness; a ghost story; and an examination of unspeakable loss."
-Guardian (UK)
"An enthralling tale of a little girl lost, wrapped in a portrait of a changing community over two decades. What binds it all together so impressively is O'Flynn's emotional articulacy, which captures life's sad, strange absurdities and glosses them with a kind of nobility."
-Observer (UK) Catherine O'Flynn was born in Birmingham in 1970. She has worked as a teacher, a web editor, and a postwoman, as well as a record store clerk. What Was Lost is her first novel. 1984
Falcon Investigations
1
Crime was out there. Undetected, unseen. She hoped she wouldn't be too late. The bus driver was keeping the bus at a steady 15 m.p.h., braking at every approaching green light until it turned red. She closed her eyes and continued the journey in her head as slowly as she could. She opened them, but still the bus lagged far behind her worst projection. Pedestrians overtook them, the driver whistled.
She looked at the other passengers and tried to deduce their activities for the day. Most were pensioners and she counted four instances of the same huge, blue checked shopping bag. She made a note of the occurrence in her pad; she knew better than to believe in coincidences.
She read the adverts on the bus. Most were adverts for adverts: 'If you're reading this, then so could your customers.' She wondered if any of the passengers ever took out advertising space on the bus, and what they would advertise if they did.
'Come and enjoy my big, blue, checked shopping bag, it is filled with catfood.'
'I will talk to anyone about anything. I also eat biscuits.'
'Mr and Mrs Roberts, officially recognized brewers of the world's strongest tea. "We squeeze the bag."'
'I smell strange, but not unpleasantly.'
Kate thought she would like to take out an advert for the agency. The image would be a silhouette of her and Mickey within the lens of a magnifying glass. Below, it would say:
Falcon Investigations
Clues found. Suspects trailed.
Crimes detected.
Visit our office equipped with the latest surveillance equipment.
She made another note in her pad of the phone number on the advert, to be rung at some later date when the office was fully operational.
Eventually the bus reached the landscaped lawns and forlorn, fluttering flags of the light industrial estates that surrounded the newly opened Green Oaks Shopping Centre. She paid particular attention to unit 15 on the Langsdale Estate, where she had once witnessed what seemed to be an argument between two men. One man had a large moustache, the other wore sunglasses and no jacket on what had been a cold day - she'd thought they both looked of criminal character. After some deliberation and subsequent sightings of a large white van outside the unit, she had come to the conclusion that the two men were trafficking diamonds. Today all was quiet at the unit.
S
1984
Falcon Investigations
2003
Voices in the Static
1984
Staying in the City
2004
The Lookout "Skewers our consumer society in all its absurdity and terrible sadness, while deftly interweaving a tender and heartbreaking personal narrative. A great debut novel from an awesomely talented writer."
-Jonathan Coe
"An exceptional, polyphonic novel of urban disaffection, written with humour and pathos. Kate's deceptively jaunty diary reveals a consumer-driven society choking on its own loneliness; a ghost story; and an examination of unspeakable loss."
-Guardian (UK)
"An enthralling tale of a little girl lost, wrapped in a portrait of a changing community over two decades. What binds it all together so impressively is O'Flynn's emotional articulacy, which captures life's sad, strange absurdities and glosses them with a kind of nobility."
-Observer (UK) Catherine O'Flynn was born in Birmingham in 1970. She has worked as a teacher, a web editor, and a postwoman, as well as a record store clerk. What Was Lost is her first novel. 1984
Falcon Investigations
1
Crime was out there. Undetected, unseen. She hoped she wouldn't be too late. The bus driver was keeping the bus at a steady 15 m.p.h., braking at every approaching green light until it turned red. She closed her eyes and continued the journey in her head as slowly as she could. She opened them, but still the bus lagged far behind her worst projection. Pedestrians overtook them, the driver whistled.
She looked at the other passengers and tried to deduce their activities for the day. Most were pensioners and she counted four instances of the same huge, blue checked shopping bag. She made a note of the occurrence in her pad; she knew better than to believe in coincidences.
She read the adverts on the bus. Most were adverts for adverts: 'If you're reading this, then so could your customers.' She wondered if any of the passengers ever took out advertising space on the bus, and what they would advertise if they did.
'Come and enjoy my big, blue, checked shopping bag, it is filled with catfood.'
'I will talk to anyone about anything. I also eat biscuits.'
'Mr and Mrs Roberts, officially recognized brewers of the world's strongest tea. "We squeeze the bag."'
'I smell strange, but not unpleasantly.'
Kate thought she would like to take out an advert for the agency. The image would be a silhouette of her and Mickey within the lens of a magnifying glass. Below, it would say:
Falcon Investigations
Clues found. Suspects trailed.
Crimes detected.
Visit our office equipped with the latest surveillance equipment.
She made another note in her pad of the phone number on the advert, to be rung at some later date when the office was fully operational.
Eventually the bus reached the landscaped lawns and forlorn, fluttering flags of the light industrial estates that surrounded the newly opened Green Oaks Shopping Centre. She paid particular attention to unit 15 on the Langsdale Estate, where she had once witnessed what seemed to be an argument between two men. One man had a large moustache, the other wore sunglasses and no jacket on what had been a cold day - she'd thought they both looked of criminal character. After some deliberation and subsequent sightings of a large white van outside the unit, she had come to the conclusion that the two men were trafficking diamonds. Today all was quiet at the unit.
S