ABOUT
THE BOOK

The Grand Complication is narrated by Alexander Short, a stylish young reference librarian of arcane interests. The account begins with Alexander’s job in jeopardy and his marriage destined for the ‘Discard Shelf’. Enter the improbably named Henry James Jesson III, a bibliophile who hires the librarian for some after-hours research. The task: to render whole an incomplete cabinet of wonders chronicling the life of a mysterious eighteenth-century inventor. As the investigation heats up, Alexander realises there are many more secrets lurking in Jesson’s cloistered world than those found inside his elegant Manhattan town house. With a notebook tethered to his jacket, Alexander plunges headlong into the search, only to discover that the void in the cabinet is rivalled by emptiness in his heart.