From early in the career of acclaimed international bestselling author Campbell Armstrong comes a dark, menacing, Kafkaesque thriller Berg comes to the village to begin a new job and a new life far from the oppression of his mother. From the start, he feels ill at ease. His landlady is a widow whose husband died after eating poisoned mushrooms, and who cooks the foulest stew he has ever tasted. Her daughter, Monika, is a flirt who seems intent on undermining Berg's fragile confidence. His job is a mystery of paper-pushing and classified documents, none of which he is allowed to understand. As the days go by, he feels a growing sense of dread. The town is closing in for the kill.   While Berg is sleeping, Monika is raped and left near death on the first floor of her house. She accuses Berg of the crime, drawing him into a labyrinth of bureaucratic justice from which insanity may be the only escape.