By Eric Leclere — Published 1999

Paperback: 19.8cm x 12.9cm — 438 pages — ISBN: 9780953556205

‘Here we go again,’ said Deborah De Moraes; ‘Simplify and damn.’

‘Don’t you believe in simplicity,’ asked Lombard.  

‘Should I?’

‘We all have to like what we become, Mrs. De Moraes. Cowards included. We achieve this by complicating things a little. But it’s never that complicated really,’ replied Lombard.  

‘Huh!’

London. Leonard Spitz is thirty years old and missing. Mrs. Spitz is a worried mother, Mr. Spitz a resigned father, and their daughter Deborah as proud as her looks and as cold as the family’s money. All reckon the missing man has succumbed to his fondness for drugs again. Only, Xavier Lombard finds out that before vanishing Leonard had got involved with people who get up in the morning to peddle children for a living.

Meanwhile, Bill the pet shop owner gets himself a puppy for company, Perkins the butcher-landlord has to raise his rent, and three bored Los Angeles teenage girls kill time in a children’s playground. And on Hampstead Heath, a little man with a cell-phone and a pony-tail finds life really hard trying to shoot a movie scene...

They made a MOVIE of this novel — Here is a REVIEW of the movie; and another.

Here is the SECOND DRAFT SCREENPLAY written by Eric and Margaret Leclere prior to it being "rewritten by fresh pairs of eyes".