Contents

About the Book

About the Author

Also by John Harvey

Title Page

Fedora

Previewing Darkness, Darkness

Copyright

Also by John Harvey

In a True Light
Nick’s Blues
Gone to Ground
Far Cry
Good Bait

The Elder Novels
Flesh and Blood
Ash and Bone
Darkness and Light

The Resnick Novels
Lonely Hearts
Rough Treatment
Cutting Edge
Off Minor
Wasted Years
Cold Light
Living Proof
Easy Meat
Still Water
Last Rites
Cold in Hand
Darkness, Darkness

Short Stories
Now’s the Time
Minor Key
A Darker Shade of Blue

Poetry
Ghosts of a Chance
Bluer Than This
Out of Silence: New & Selected Poems

As Editor
Blue Lightning
Men From Boys

About the Author

Best known as a writer of crime fiction, his work translated into more than twenty languages, John Harvey is also a dramatist, poet, publisher and occasional broadcaster.

The first of his twelve Charlie Resnick novels, Lonely Hearts, was named by The Times as one of the ‘100 Best Crime Novels of the Century’. The recipient of honorary doctorates from the Universities of Nottingham and Hertfordshire, in 2007 he was awarded the Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement. ‘Fedora’ won the 2014 Crime Writer’s Association Short Story Award.

For more about the author visit www.mellotone.co.uk

About the Book

Winner of the Crime Writers’ Association Short Story Dagger, 2014.

Private investigator, Jack Kiley, is persuaded to look into an old relationship between a photographer and a model with disastrous results.

Also includes the opening chapter of John Harvey’s new Resnick novel, Darkness, Darkness, out in paperback on 25 September.

FEDORA

John Harvey

When they had first met, amused by his occupation, Kate had sent him copies of Hammett and Chandler, two neat piles of paperbacks, bubble-wrapped, courier-delivered. A note: If you’re going to do, do it right. Fedora follows. He hadn’t been certain exactly what a fedora was.

Jack Kiley, private investigator. Security work of all kinds undertaken. Ex-Metropolitan Police.

Most of his assignments came from bigger security firms, PR agencies with clients in need of babysitting, steering clear of trouble; solicitors after witness confirmation, a little dirt. If it didn’t make him rich, most months it paid the rent: a second-floor flat above a charity shop in north London, Tufnell Park. He still didn’t have a hat.

Till now.

One of the volunteers in the shop had taken it in. ‘An admirer, Jack, is that what it is?’

There was a card attached to the outside of the box: Chris Ruocco of London, Bespoke Tailoring. It hadn’t come far. A quarter mile, at most. Kiley had paused often enough outside the shop, coveting suits in the window he could ill afford.

But this was a broad-brimmed felt hat, not quite black. Midnight blue? He tried it on for size. More or less a perfect fit.

There was a note sticking up from the band: on one side, a quote from Chandler; on the other a message: Ozone, tomorrow. 11am? Both in Kate Keenan’s hand.

He took the hat back off and placed it on the table alongside his mobile phone. Had half a mind to call her and decline. Thanks, but no thanks. Make some excuse. Drop the fedora back at Ruocco’s next time he caught the overground from Kentish Town.

It had been six months now since he and Kate had last met, the premiere of a new Turkish-Albanian film to which she’d been invited, Kiley leaving halfway through and consoling himself with several large whiskies in the cinema bar. When Kate had finally emerged, preoccupied by the piece she was going to write for her column in the Independent