The Rhythm Section - Hardcover

Burnell, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 000225915X ISBN 13: 9780002259156

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1999

Synopsis

Soon to be a major motion picture, from the producers of the James Bond film series, starring Jude Law and Blake Lively.

The debut of an extraordinary new author – a novel of how a woman, pushed over the edge by the violent deaths of her family, survives only by taking other identities.

Stephanie Patrick’s world was destroyed by the Atlantic aircrash. Falling into a downward spiral of prostitution, drugs and drink, she is picked up by a journalist who has discovered that it was a bomb that caused the crash. And it is his murder that pulls her out of herself.

The Rhythm Section is the story of Stephanie’s attempt to reclaim herself. To survive she has to play a series of roles; she is never herself. As a prostitute, she is Lisa, the chemical blonde. Later, she is Petra Reuter, German anarchist turned mercenary terrorist. Sometimes, she is Marina Gaudenzi, a Swiss businesswoman, or she’s Susan Branch, an American student, or Elizabeth Shepherd, an English management consultant.

But whoever she is, she’s never herself because her life depends on her being someone else. This is the way she is trained by the intelligence service that recruits her, but it’s also the way she’s taught herself to be; being someone else has always worked for her and so it does now, until she begins to fall in love for the first time with Frank White. This poses new questions: which of the many people she has become is the one to have fallen in love? With whom has Frank fallen in love? And who is the real Stephanie?

It is this question which is at the heart of the story. More than anything, The Rhythm Section is about a catastrophic crisis of identity and the price that has to be paid to be free of it.

About this title

Review

‘Mark Burnell has created a rounded literary character and a memorable heroine. But who is she really? A fine debut.’ The Economist

From the Back Cover

“Drums and bass are the rhythm section. Your heart is the drums, your breathing is the bass. you get those two sorted, then you’re sorted. You can’t panic when your breathing is under control and you’ve got your pulse in check. It’s not physically possible.”

“She’s a chemical blonde”

On the fragment of dirty yellow card there was a photograph of a woman. The bottom half – the half with the phone number – was missing.

Listlessly dependent on drugs and drink, Lisa is the chemical blonde, paying for her addictions through prostitution. Too intelligent for her own good, Stephanie is the university drop out whose life is a spiral of decline. Organized but emotionally numb, Marina is the Swiss consultant to an international pharmaceutical company based in Brussels. As merciless as she is clinical, Petra is the German student anarchist who has become the most feared mercenary terrorist in Europe.

Four completely different women with one thing in common ... each other.

Four people housed in a single body, four minds crushed into one, Stephanie Patrick is no longer sure who she is. The surviving daughter seeking revenge for the destruction of her family? The prostitute who doesn’t care whether she lives or dies? The competent executive whose fear of love is almost as strong as her desire to experience it? Or the terrorist tracking an invisible enemy whose character seems increasingly similar to her own?

Recruited and trained, she is plunged into a world where her ability to switch persona keeps her alive. But it is a fragile talent which threatens to disintegratewhen she starts to fall in love. All her life, she’s survived by being somebody else. Now that she thinks she’s found the right man, she wants to be herself but who is she? Does the original Stephanie Patrick exist any longer? And if she does, is Stephanie the one he wants?

Recruited and trained, she is plunged into a world where her ability to switch persona keeps her alive. But it is a fragile talent which threatens to disintegrate when she starts to fall in love. All her life, she’s survived by being somebody else but who is she? Does the original Stephanie Patrick exist any longer? And if she does, is Stephanie the one she wants?

The right man at the wrong time, the wrong woman most of the time, and four thousand innocent people running out of time ...

Edgy, sharp, contemporary and yet romantic, 'The Rythm Section'introduces a distinctive, original voice.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 000225915X
• ISBN 13: 9780002259156
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384