Cytherea

In late autumn, a man plays golf alone. This is Lee Randon, and he is not merely exercising - he is escaping. At fifty, with a comfortable marriage to Fanny and all the trappings of settled life, Lee has begun to understand that he has already lived his best years. Then he sees the doll in the shop window. Cytherea. A wax figure so exquisitely rendered she seems to breathe. She becomes his obsession, his window into everything he never possessed, every desire he never acted upon. When the young actress Mina Raff enters their social circle, Lee's restlessness crystallizes into something more dangerous. This is a novel about the violence of wanting what you cannot have - and the quiet terror of realizing your life is already over.