Coincidence Engine

About Sam Leith

Sam Leith is a freelance writer and critic. A former Literary Editor of the Daily Telegraph, he now writes regularly for the Evening Standard, Guardian, Spectator, Wall Street Journal Europe and Prospect. He lives near North London's picturesque Suicide Bridge with his fiancée Alice, daughter Marlene and son Max. His cat is called Henry.

Praise

“A comic caper. . . . Pitched somewhere between the heartbreaking pitfalls of Jonathan Coe and the paranoid zaniness of Thomas Pynchon, this is a clever debut, well worth checking out.” — Sunday Times

“Witty and inventive, like something out of Hitchcock by way of Carl Hiassen, this tale of mayhem, murder and mistaken identity is a hugely entertaining, freewheeling riff on the paranoid, conspiracy driven American psyche.” —The Mail on Sunday

 “Blending elements of a road novel, a spy thriller and a philosophical inquiry into the nature of chance, it is gripping, funny and unsettling.” —Financial Times

“The silliness multiplies across Sam Leith’s pages like fractal rainbows. . . . Anarchic, psychedelic, with a serious delight in paradox. . . . For [Leith], silliness is not camouflage but its opposite: a tantalizing surface that attracts attention and draws it very much deeper.” —The Guardian

“A novel of ideas. . . . Sam Leith [writes] with admirable imaginative stamina, helped along by sharply observed and entertaining writing.” —Independent

“A comic thriller that, in its deliberate daftness, shows how disturbing daftness can be when taken to extremes.” —Times Literary Supplement