In this taut psychological thriller, a couple and their houseguest find themselves caught in a deadly web of secrets, obsession, and revenge. It is summer, 2012. Charlie, a wealthy banker with an uneasy conscience, invites his troubled cousin Matthew to visit him and his wife in their idyllic mountaintop house. As the days grow hotter, the friendship between the three begins to reveal its fault lines, and with the arrival of a fourth character, the household finds itself suddenly in the grip of uncontrollable passions. As readers of James Lasdun’s acclaimed fiction can expect, The Fall Guy is a complex moral tale as well as a gripping suspense story, probing questions of guilt and betrayal with ruthless incisiveness. Who is the real victim here? Who is the perpetrator? And who, ultimately, is the fall guy? Darkly vivid, with an atmosphere of erotic danger, The Fall Guy is Lasdun’s most entertaining novel yet.

Life as John Waynes stuntman. Chuck Roberson fell off horses for thirty years, doubling for some of the biggest names in moves - John Wayne, Gregory Peck, Gable, Mitchum, and Heston. He and his great horse Cocaine devised a running horse fall that was safe but a spectacular improvement on the cantering lie down horse fall used before, and together they galloped their way into the Stuntman's Hall of Fame. When Cocaine finally quit after 27 years before the cameras, Roberson say his "heart wasn't in it any more." Now retired, he recalls the highlights of his career in this humorous book.

Charlie, a wealthy banker with an uneasy conscience, invites his troubled cousin Matthew to visit him and his wife in their idyllic mountain-top house over the summer. As the days grow hotter, the friendship between the three begins to reveal its fault lines. When a fourth person arrives, the household finds itself suddenly in the grip of uncontrollable passions. Who is the real victim? Who is the perpetrator? And who, ultimately, is the fall guy?

Handyman Cedric O'Toole is set up to take the fall for a murder he didn't commit. He'll need all his inventive powers to save himself.