Language: English. Deutsche Übersetzung hier. Nederlandse vertaling hier.

One intended good deed turns Adam Kindred's life upside down - he loses job, reputation, home, passport, money, etc. He has no other option than going underground, joining the ranks of the disappeared and being chased by killers and acquainted to a crazy priest, a prostitute, a policewoman.

Or, how Alex Clark of The Guardian plots it: "Adam Kindred, a climatologist in flight from America and a sexual indiscretion that has thrown a spanner into his marriage and his academic career, is in London for a job interview. Dining alone, he strikes up a conversation with Philip Wang, an immunologist who subsequently leaves a sheaf of papers in the restaurant; when Adam attempts to return them, he finds his new acquaintance taking a siesta with a bread knife in his side. A clever man, Kindred immediately does two stupid things: he removes the bread knife, thus ensuring both death and fingerprints, and goes on the run, pursued by Wang's killer. With a murderer and, shortly, the police on his trail, he creates a hidey-hole in an overshadowed piece of rough ground on the Embankment and settles down to a life of subterfuge, vagrancy and killing seagulls for dinner."