''The best novel I''ve read this year. Unputdownable'' TIME OUT

It is the mid-80s in post-industrial America. In a small town graced with the decaying hulks of defunct factories, young journalist and college dropout Bill churns out lengthy essays on the death of industry and of America itself for the Daily Truth, whose scoops rarely rise above the latest home-bake contest.

Then, bad boy Ronny Lawton reports his father missing. A dismembered finger is found and suspicion falls on Ronny, though nothing can be proved. For Bill, the story becomes an obsession - he gets involved with Ronny''s estranged wife, finds a decomposing human head, and ends up as a suspect in the murder case himself.

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2000, The Keepers of Truth combines a tantalising mystery with a bracing meditation on a nation on the edge. Satirical and profound, it offers a razor-sharp portrait of the American dream gone sour.