Mr. In-Between - by Neil Cross (Paperback)

About the Book

Jon Bennet is the perfect employee: systematic, productive, and utterly reliable. He is also completely detached from the world around him and seemingly feels nothing... for Jon's life is anything but common. On the tight leash of the Tattooed Man, Jon kills and maims on order. And he's good at it. But Jon's days of favor are about to end. After bumping into old school friends, he slowly reenters the normal world, where the bonds of friendship, love, and kindness are expected, and he finds himself changing back into the person he once was. But the Tattooed Man requires total servitude, and his wrath is more fearful than Jon could ever have expected.

Book Synopsis

From the award-winning creator of Luther: A dark portrait of a young British hitman and his quest to find something beyond his cold, brutal world.

Jon Bennet is the perfect employee: systematic, productive, and utterly reliable. He is also completely detached from the world around him and seemingly feels nothing . . . for Jon's life is anything but common. On the tight leash of the Tattooed Man, Jon kills and maims on order. And he's good at it.

But Jon's days of favor are about to end. After bumping into old school friends, he slowly reenters the normal world, where the bonds of friendship, love, and kindness are expected, and he finds himself changing back into the person he once was.

But the Tattooed Man requires total servitude, and his wrath is more fearful than Jon could ever have expected. This sophisticatedly twisted and surprisingly moving novel by the PEN-shortlisted author of Heartland and Burial and creator of the hit BBC crime series starring Idris Elba--as well as the novel Luther: The Calling--is a dark psychological journey into the mind of a killer and "a thrilling tale of perverse redemption" (The Literary Review).

Review Quotes

"Neil Cross applies a sharp satirical gaze to inarticulate male working-class culture. . . . Cross's portrayal of male friendship, the rituals of working-class life and the shock of bereavement is superbly done." --The Observer

"The precision of thought, psychological scope and massive inner crises [Jon Bennet] goes through as his friend is dragged deeper down justifies the hype around this first novel." --Esquire

"A tightly written thriller that starts out dirty-realist and violent and then modulates into something rather different and thought-provoking, philosophical . . . Bleak, dark, with a distinctly modern-gothic imagination, and certainly readable." --The Literary Review

"Cross's first novel displays a subtle mind grappling with a thrilling tale of perverse redemption." --The Independent on Sunday

About the Author

Neil Cross (b. 1969) is a British novelist and screenwriter best known as the creator of the multiple-award-winning international hit BBC crime series Luther, starring Idris Elba, and the international hit horror movie Mama. His highly acclaimed memoir, Heartland, was shortlisted for the PEN/Ackerley Prize in 2006. Cross has also written several thrillers, including Captured, Holloway Falls, and Always the Sun, which was longlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize. Cross continues to write for TV and film in the United Kingdom and the United States. He lives with his wife and two sons in Wellington, New Zealand.