Amberville - by Tim Davys (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

What does it mean to be bad?

Eric Bear has it all: a successful career, a beautiful wife, a blissful home. He knows he's been lucky; a while back, his life revolved around drugs, gambling, a gang of stuffed-animal thugs, and notorious crime boss Nicholas Dove.

But the past isn't as far away as Eric had hoped. Rumors are swirling that Dove is on the Death List and that he wants Eric to save him. If Eric fails to act, his beloved wife, Emma Rabbit, will be torn apart, limb from limb, and reduced to stuffing.

With a nod to the best of noir and the wisest of allegories--interlaced with greed and gangsters--Amberville depicts an alternate world that mirrors our own realities and moral concerns, and reminds us of the inextricable link between good and evil.

From the Back Cover

What does it mean to be bad?

Eric Bear has it all: a successful career, a beautiful wife, a blissful home. He knows he's been lucky; a while back, his life revolved around drugs, gambling, a gang of stuffed-animal thugs, and notorious crime boss Nicholas Dove.

But the past isn't as far away as Eric had hoped. Rumors are swirling that Dove is on the Death List and that he wants Eric to save him. If Eric fails to act, his beloved wife, Emma Rabbit, will be torn apart, limb from limb, and reduced to stuffing.

With a nod to the best of noir and the wisest of allegories--interlaced with greed and gangsters--Amberville depicts an alternate world that mirrors our own realities and moral concerns, and reminds us of the inextricable link between good and evil.

Review Quotes

"When you're tired of run-of-the-mill fiction, it's time to read AMBERVILLE. These are stuffed animals like you've never seen: deep, dark, and, somehow, utterly believable. Lucky us--a mystery that's completely original." - Brad Meltzer, bestselling author of THE BOOK OF LIES

"... the romantic triangle among Eric, Teddy and Emma is engagingly drawn, and never for a moment does the story feel like kids stuff. An appealingly unique world, cut from some interesting cloth." - Kirkus Reviews

"Those with an appetite for the bizarre will best appreciate the pseudonymous Davys's offbeat debut, set entirely in a town inhabited by living, breathing stuffed animals." - Publishers Weekly

"[A] delightful debut.... No character in Amberville is quite what he or she seems, and each offers a meditation on truth, power, the value of goodness, and the nature of evil." - BookForum

"A delightful mystery-thriller set in a city populated by stuffed animals. [It] is dastardly fun to read....Once the "whoa - this is weird" reaction subsides, 'Amberville' is a nifty rollick that's as bracing as a good shot of whisky." - San Francisco Chronicle

"[An] audacious concept . . . [a] giddy thrill." - Los Angeles Times

"Weird? Obviously. But oddly gripping and convincing. Amberville, originally published in Swedish, is the first novel by the pseudonymous Tim Davys. . . . Should you flinch? Laugh? Both? There's more than stuffing here, though, including questions of good vs. evil, life vs. death, and sanity vs. insanity. Skip that evening Scotch and read this one stone-cold sober--it's plenty trippy as is." - Washington Post

"'Amberville' is a delightful mystery-thriller set in a city populated by stuffed animals. Yes, it sounds kooky, weird, even hopelessly cute. . . . But this debut . . . is dastardly fun to read. . . . A nifty rollick that's as bracing as a good shot of whisky." - San Francisco Chronicle

"Amberville has some bite to it. . . . True identities constantly shift in this world--lovers might be enemies, priests can be evil, and stuffed animals, given the depth and intellect that Davys gives them, may as well be human." - Chicago Sun-Times