A Patch Of Fog

Status: Completed

Sandy is a celebrated novelist – intelligent, charming, popular with women. No matter that he hasn’t been able to write a worthwhile word since his first novel, A PATCH OF FOG, was published 10 years before, to great critical acclaim. Things for Sandy are pretty good. He has parlayed the book’s success into cosy careers as university lecturer, arts critic and TV personality. He’s making romantic headway with TV host Lucy. For thrills he indulges a small addiction to shoplifting.

In pursuit of one such thrill he is caught red-handed by store security guard Robert. From the same city but an entirely different world, Robert is a lonely soul – rough, uncultured, uneducated and decidedly unstable. On discovering the thief’s identity, he uses evidence of Sandy’s misdemeanour to ensnare him into an unwelcome ‘friendship’. Sandy is unable to refuse, the more he wriggles the deeper the young man’s hooks sink in. Until he realises that his companionship is as valuable to Robert as his own reputation is to him. And so he starts to play the game and encourage Robert’s infatuation. But Sandy isn’t quite as clever as he thinks and Robert not quite as stupid. As Robert discovers more and more about him, not even charm and intelligence can help Sandy avoid a violent confrontation with his past that will determine the course of the rest of his life.