Nicolas Freeling: A City Solitary (USA 2023)

From the Publisher:
From an Edgar award-winning author, a psychological thriller about a crime victim who turns criminal when he goes on the run with his assailants.

Middle-aged writer Walter Forestier's ordinary existence takes a turn towards violence when he is viciously attacked at home, robbed, and left bound for his wife to find him. Of course, she wants to call the police, but Walter refuses. Even more mysterious, when the burglars strike again, Walter will not testify against them. Instead, he finds himself a party to the gang leader's escape from jail, and once on the road through France with the band of thieves, Walter's life will never be the same again.

Nicolas Freeling: A City Solitary. A Henri Castang Mystery. Early Bird Books / Open Road Media, ISBN: 9781504090193 (December, 2023), eBook, 2672 KB (ca. 318 p.), $14.99.

Nicolas Freeling: A City Solitary (2001)

From the Publisher:
A harmless, self-obsessed writer is attacked by muggers in his own home but what starts as an assault turns into an unusual kidnapping. This is an entrancing tale where the hunter and the hunted become the subject of an enthralling scrutiny under the pen of a master crimewriter.

'Freeling in his feet-on-the-desk cabbages-and-kings vein is an acquired taste, but well worth acquiring' The Observer

Nicolas Freeling: A City Solitary. A Henri Castang Mystery. House of Stratus, ISBN: 1842328603 (April, 2001), 222 p., £6.99, $11.50.

Nicolas Freeling: A City Solitary (UK 1986)

From the Publisher:
Nicolas Freeling probes to the heart of a crime -- and its not-so-helpless victim
Three mocking, self-confident punks have vandalized the Forrestiers' home. The actual damage is minimal, but Walter Forrestier's brush with crime, and with the criminal justice system, begins to corrupt all the values he holds sacred. Forced into action, Walter sets out on a course of vengeance that will destroy everything in his path.

"Well-written, perceptive, realistic, this book has many appeals." -- Publishers Weekly

Cover design and illustration by Irving Freeman

Nicolas Freeling: A City Solitary. Penguin, ISBN: 0140080570 (June, 1986), 206 p., £1.95.

Nicolas Freeling: A City Solitary (UK 1985)

From the Publisher:
This new novel by Nicolas Freeling is a complete departure from his novels of Castang and Van der Valk. The familiar and always engrossing theme of the hunted and the hunters is ever-present, but there are many ingenious twists. When a harmless, self-absorbed writer is attacked by young people who invade his house, what are his reactions? Fear certainly. Curiosity (every writer's failing), of course. But instead of a routine mugging, the criminal attempt turns into a bizarre kidnapping.

In our self-promoting world, fortune and fame depend upon stealing more skilfully, lying more blatantly, inflating vanity. In such a world what can 'honour' mean? This is the tale of a man who prized honour, lost it, found it.

Nicolas Freeling has always pushed the themes of crime to further boundaries. Readers familiar with this unfailingly original and profound writer will be enchanted. Those unfamiliar will be first disconcerted and then delighted.

Nicolas Freeling: A City Solitary. London: Heinemann, 1985, ISBN: 043427190X, 205 p., £8.50.