From Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner Kem Nunn and âprincipal heir to the tradition of Raymond Chandler and Nathanael Westâ (The Washington Post)âan intense psychological suspense novel about a San Francisco neuropsychiatrist who becomes sexually involved with a woman suffering from multiple personality disorder, whose pathological ex-husband is an Oakland homicide detective.
A dark tale involving psychiatric mystery, sexual obsession, fractured identities, and terrifyingly realistic violenceâChance is set amid the back streets of Californiaâs Bay Area, far from the cleansing breezes of the ocean. Dr. Eldon Chance, a neuropsychiatrist, is a man primed for spectacular ruin. Into Dr. Chanceâs blighted life walks Jaclyn Blackstone, the abused, attractive wife of an Oakland homicide detective, a violent and jealous man. Jaclyn appears to be suffering from a dissociative identity disorder. In time, Chance will fall into bed with herâor is it with her alter ego, the voracious and volatile Jackie Black? The not-so-good doctor, despite his professional training, isnât quite sureâand thereby hangs his fascination with her. Meanwhile, Chance also meets a young man named D, a self-styled, streetwise philosopher skilled in the art of the blade. It is around this trio of unique and dangerous individuals that long guarded secrets begin to unravel, obsessions grow, and the doctorâs carefully arranged life comes to the brink of implosion.
Amid San Franciscoâs fluid, ever-shifting fog, in the cool, gray city of love, Dr. Chance will at last be forced to live up to his name. Chance is a twisted, harrowing, and impossible-to-put-down head trip through the fun house of fate, mesmerizing until the very last page.