Astronaut!

<p>'Brilliant, compulsive and thrilling. I will be reading this book again!' - <b>Alice Winn</b>, author of <i>IN MEMORIAM</i><br><br>'One of the best novels I've read this year.' - <b>Joanna Quinn</b>, author of <i>The Whalebone Theatre</i><br><br>'You will love this book!' - <b>Jennifer Croft</b>, translator of <i>Flights</i> by Olga Tokarczuk and author of <i>The Extinction of Irena Rey<br></i><br>~ ~ ~<br><br><b>Romania, 1989: </b>a grey place of mysterious queues, ubiquitous informers and daily news flashes about a<b> man-eating bear </b>that is terrorising the country.<br><br>Amidst the daily drudge of work, rationing and careful conversation with neighbours, two lives unexpectedly collide when an idealistic police detective, <b>Constantin</b>, is tasked with solving a string of grisly murders, and a rebellious school child, <b>Lia</b>, is unwittingly drawn into her elderly neighbour's seditious plot.<br><br>Dryly satirical, incredibly tense and deeply moving, <b>ASTRONAUT!</b> is both a detective novel and a coming-of-age tale, one with a perennially relevant message: <b>the lies we accept today become the truths of tomorrow.</b><br><br><b>More praise for ASTRONAUT!:</b><br>'Had me on the edge of my seat' - <b>Kenan Orhan</b>, author of <i>The Renovation<br></i>'If Solzhenitsyn and Hans Christian Andersen had had literary offspring, it might be Oana Aristide.' - <b>Saïd Sayrafiezadeh</b>, author of <i>American Estrangement</i><br>'Completely absorbing.' - <b>Georgina Godwin</b>, broadcaster and literary journalist</p>