Product Review

How should we approach our own impending mortality…?

Accept it passively?

Bow to fate’s steadfast resolve magnanimously and without regrets?

Albert, an international businessman and traveller of a certain vintage, wishes nothing more than to be spared the infirmities and indignities of old age

What if there was another way? A means of turning the tables, of playing destiny at its own game?

Enter the beautiful Javanese sophisticate, Devi, The Applicant in Albert’s cunning contract with his Maker.

Her task, should she accept it, is to terminate Albert’s seventy plus years on planet earth swiftly, professionally and when he least expects it.

A high-octane cat and mouse game ensues, pursuer and pursued interlocked in a complex psychological battle of wits and wavering resolve.

As Albert’s friend and cerebral sparring partner, Casey begins to piece together the puzzle and is drawn into the fray.

The stakes rise once more, and an intricate triangle of deceit, betrayal, love and compassion is played out with devastating results.

Set in Amsterdam’s cosmopolitan cafe culture, The Applicant resonates with existential yearning and moral ambiguity, creating a taut psychological thriller with probing philosophical insight.

Anthony Steyning is the author of four previous novels. His first, The Vortical Man, was published in Paris and led to Steyning meeting Lawrence Durrell, who became a supporter of his work. His most recent, The Applicant, was published by The Book Guild in 2004. Anthony Steyning has also written three plays, two of which have been performed in Montreal and New York. Having travelled extensively throughout his life, the author currently resides in southern Spain.