Page Updated: 13/05/01
Jody Shields
Jody Shields
The Fig EaterThe Fig Eater Newpbk 07 Jun 01
Buy at Amazon.co.ukBooks By Jody Shields
About the Author (Photo by Brigitte Lacombe)
Bibliography


New Paperback - Black Swan (2001)
First British Edition Doubleday (2000)
Buy at Amazon.co.uk The Fig Eater
He watches her eating one fig, then two more, grinding the seeds between her teeth, the sound echoing in her head, perhaps the last sound Dora heard before there was the thunder of blood in her ears...
Vienna, 1910. On a warm August night the body of a young girl is discovered in the city's celebrated Volksgarten. She has been strangled. Using the latest forensic methods and psychological thinking, the Chief Inspector of Police begins his painstaking search for the killer. He is not alone, however. His wife Erszebet - an exotic, passionate woman steeped in the folk tales and Gypsy lore of her native Hungary becomes obsessed with the dead girl. In secret, and enlisting the help of a young English governess, she conducts her own investigation of the murder, guided by intuition, instinct and superstition.
Inspired by the story of Freud's celebrated patient Dora and set against the brooding backdrop of fin-de-siècle Vienna, The Fig Eater is a mesmerizing novel of suspense and latent eroticism and marks an astonishing fiction début.
‘Suspenseful, atmospheric and highly intelligent… Jody Shields focuses a brilliant light on the murky world of imperial Vienna and Freud's famous patient.' D.M.Thomas, author of The White Hotel
`Eerie and erotic - a Viennese dance of death’ Victoria Glendinning
‘Highly unusual, eerie... a glorious maze of dead ends and false leads. Sometimes gruesome and highly mysterious, it is an exciting new brand of detective story’ Spectator
`An artful and evocative thriller ...rich in the texture of corruption’ Independent
`An intensely powerful sense of time and place in this atmospheric and accomplished period whodunit’ Harpers & Queen
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About The Author
A resident of New York, Jody Shields is the former Design Editor of New York Times magazine and a former Contributing Editor of American Vogue and House and Garden. The author of two non-fiction books on fashion, she has also written several screenplays and is a collected artist. The Fig Eater is her first novel.

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Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.

  • The Fig Eater (Doubleday, 2000) New Black Swan Pbk Jun 01

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