Zed

Joanna Kavenna

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• eBook ISBN:
  9780571321834
• Year: 2019

'Fun and erudite' Sunday Times
'Snort-inducingly funny' Daily Mail
'One of the cleverest books you'll read this year' Telegraph

A darkly ironic novel of ideas, a dystopia, and an absurdist thriller, from the award-winning novelist

Self-anointed guru of the Digital Age, Guy Matthias, CEO of Beetle, has become one of the world's most powerful and influential figures. Untaxed and ungoverned, his trans-Atlantic company essentially operates beyond the control of Governments or the law.

But trouble is never far away, and for Guy a perfect storm is brewing: his wife wants to leave him, fed up with his serial infidelities; malfunctioning Beetle software has led to some unfortunate deaths which are proving hard to cover up; his longed for deal with China is proving troublingly elusive and, among other things, the mystery hacker, Gogol, is on his trail.

With the clock ticking- Guy, his aide Douglas Varley, Britain's flailing female PM, conflicted national security agent Eloise Jayne, depressed journalist David Strachey, and Gogol, whoever that may be - the question is becoming ever more pressing, how do you live in reality when nobody knows anything, and all knowledge, all certainty, is partly or entirely fake?

Table of contents

• Cover
• LANDING PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• DEDICATION
• EPIGRAPH
• CONTENTS
• ONE
• TWO
• THREE
• FOUR
• FIVE
• SIX
• SEVEN
• EIGHT
• NINE
• TEN
• ELEVEN
• TWELVE
• THIRTEEN
• FOURTEEN
• FIFTEEN
• SIXTEEN
• SEVENTEEN
• EIGHTEEN
• NINETEEN
• TWENTY
• TWENTY-ONE
• TWENTY-TWO
• TWENTY-THREE
• TWENTY-FOUR
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
• COPYRIGHT