In the Absence of Heroes

A clever, moving novel about the impact of the internet on our relationships. Jim and Renata Delpe's life is in a very modern crisis. With their son, Jeff, sending text messages to his dead brother while slipping quickly into internet addiction, and with Renata engaged in a secret internet relationship with a figure she has never actually met, Jim Delpe - who has long had 'a love-hate relationship' with computers - is left with no choice but to log in himself, if the family is to be saved. In this ambitious, suspenseful and achingly human novel, set against the decline of the nuclear family and the unstoppable rise of digital relationships, In The Absence Of Heroes gives us the complex modern world, full of hard, binary choices: make one or two bad choices in a row and just see what happens . . . This is sequel to Death of a Superhero, now made into a movie, starring Andy Serkis and Thomas Brodie-Sangster.