The Detour - Tapa blanda

"The Detour is a beautiful, oddly moving work of fiction, a quiet read that lingers long in the mind, like the ghosts that linger in our homes, and in the land around us... One of Bakker's gifts is an ability to place us in a landscape so utterly that the damp begins to seep through the soles of our shoes." (John Burnside Guardian)

"The Detour is written and translated with lapidary precision, perspective and crisp prose... Simple and devastating." (Daniel Hahn Independent)

"This is a novel full of hints and mysteries... [It] will almost certainly keep you routed to your chair until the denouement." (Connie Bensley The Spectator)

"Intelligently thoughtful." (Eileen Battersby Irish Times)

"Tranquility and tension create a quiet triumph." (Nadine O'Regan Sunday Business Post)

WINNER OF THE INDEPENDENT FOREIGN FICTION PRIZE 2013

A Dutch woman rents a remote farm in rural Wales. She says her name is Emilie. She is a lecturer doing some research, and sets about making the farmhouse more homely. When she arrives there are ten geese living in the garden but one by one they disappear. Perhaps it's the work of a local fox.

She has fled from an unbearable situation having recently confessed to an affair with one of her students. In Amsterdam, her stunned husband forms a strange partnership with a detective who agrees to help him trace her. They board the ferry to Hull on Christmas Eve.

Back on the farm, a young man out walking with his dog injures himself and stays the night, then ends up staying longer. Yet something is deeply wrong. Does he know what he is getting himself into? And what will happen when her husband and the policeman arrive?

Gerbrand Bakker has made the territories of isolation, inner turmoil and the solace offered by the natural world his own. The Detour is a deeply moving new novel, shot through with longing and the quiet tragedy of everyday lives.