The New York Trilogy

The New York Trilogy is an astonishing and original book: three cleverly interconnected novels (City of Glass, Ghosts, and The Locked Room) that exploit the elements of standard detective fiction and achieve a new genre that is all the more gripping for its starkness. In each story, the search for clues leads to remarkable coincidences in the universe as the simple act of trailing a man ultimately becomes a startling investigation of what it means to be human. Auster's book is modern fiction at its finest: bold, arresting and unputdownable.

Three stories on the nature of identity. In the first a detective writer is drawn into a curious and baffling investigation, in the second a man is set up in an apartment to spy on someone, and the third concerns the disappearance of a man whose childhood friend is left as his literary executor.