The Mystery of the Sardine

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Dalkey Archive Press, 2006 - Fiction - 193 pages

When an unknown black poodle inexplicably explodes in philosophy professor Timothy Chesterton-Brown's back yard--paralyzing the professor and killing his guest--the "mystery of the sardine" begins. Its solution will involve such unwitting detectives as a twelve-year-old mathematician, his mother, his beloved, a palmist named Miss Prentice, and a bureaucrat dubbed the Minister of Imponderabilia. The clues they unearth--drawing on logic, the occult, intuition, and everything in between--lead them far away from the tiny seaside town where they begin. We follow them to Majorca, Rome, Warsaw, and London, but in the end, the solution lies beyond even the furthest and most magical reaches of reason.

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Contents

I
3
II
15
IV
22
V
28
VI
34
VII
42
IX
48
X
60
XII
87
XIII
100
XIV
128
XV
143
XVI
154
XVII
162
XIX
174
XX
189

XI
66

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About the author (2006)

Stefan Themerson (1910-1988) was born in Poland, moved to Russia during the Revolution, studied physics and architecture in Warsaw, and lived in Paris before settling in London. Aside from his writings - which include novels such as Tom Harris, The Mystery of the Sardine, and Professor Mmaa's Lecture, children's stories, philosophical essays, and poems - Themerson also composed music and made a number of films with his wife Franciszka.

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