The Lola Quartet
Gavin Sasaki was a promising young journalist in New York City until the day he was fired for plagiarism.
The last thing he wants is to sell foreclosed real estate for his sister Eilo’s company in their Florida hometown, but he’s in no position to refuse her job offer. Plus, there’s another reason to go home: Eilo recently met a ten-year-old girl who looks very much like Gavin and has the same last name as his high-school girlfriend, Anna, who left town abruptly after graduation.
Determined to find out if this little girl might be his daughter, Gavin sets off to track down Anna, starting with the three friends they shared back when he was part of a jazz group called “The Lola Quartet.” As Gavin pieces together their stories, he learns that Anna has been on the run for good reason, and soon his investigation into her sudden disappearance all those years ago takes a seriously dangerous turn.
Listen to a sample from The Lola Quartet
Praise for The Lola Quartet
Anna Mundow,
The Washington Post
“[An] elegant, hypnotic novel. ... Mandel brilliantly modulates the heightening suspense in a novel that remains, above all, an elegy for lost — and perhaps only imagined — innocence.”
Star-Tribune
Brigitte Frase,
“This ingeniously structured literary thriller begins in sunlight before slipping deeper and deeper into crime and moral darkness. ... Emily St. John Mandel is so sure-footed in her invention and so good at delineating her cast, that I went along trustingly and with bated breath.”
Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Cincinnati, OH
Michael Fraser,
“I once said that [Emily St. John Mandel] is why I am a bookseller and continue to be one. With each new novel, she convinces me that books (and books like hers especially) are one of the best things in my life. She touches me in that special deep part of my being that is, perhaps, the best part of me.”
The Tattered Cover, CO
Joe Eichman,
“This sad, yet sublime, novel should bring Emily St. John Mandel a widespread readership. . . . [She] is a master storyteller. It is exciting to watch an author perfect her craft, and this novel definitely shows that St. John Mandel is a major writer. ... Once again, Emily St. John Mandel has taken my breath away with her taut storytelling, her flawed and deeply humane characters and a writing style that makes me fall in love with it every time. "
