A modern-day Crime and Punishment, this American debut is a glittering noir gem that will appeal to readers of Irvine Welsh, Chuck Palahniuk, Thomas Harris and Dennis Lehane How far would you go for your best friend? If she begged you to, would you kill her? Nathan Lucius, 31, is an ad salesman at a local Cape Town newspaper. Disaffected, hard-drinking and plagued by nightmares, Nathan lives alone with only one true friend, a woman named Madge. But Madge is dying slowly of cancer, and when she asks Nathan to end her pain, she sets off a shocking string of events.