**The instant Irish Times top 5 bestseller** 'Urgent and utterly compelling' KEVIN BARRY 'Twist lingers long after you've put it down' GUARDIAN 'A Gatsby tale for the internet age' ANNA FUNDER 'One of our greatest storytellers' ELIF SHAFAK 'Masterful ... A surprising, electric book' IRISH TIMES Anthony Fennell, a journalist, is in pursuit of a story buried at the bottom of the sea: the network of tiny fibre-optic tubes that carry the world's information across the ocean floor - and what happens when they break. So he has travelled to Cape Town to board the George Lecointe, a cable repair vessel captained by Chief of Mission John Conway. Conway is a talented engineer and fearless freediver - and Fennell is quickly captivated by this mysterious, unnerving man and his beautiful partner, Zanele. As the boat embarks along the west coast of Africa, Fennell learns the rhythms of life at sea. But as the mission falters, tensions simmer - and Conway is thrown into crisis by a terrible, violent tragedy unfolding in the life he has left behind on land. Then Conway disappears; and Fennell must set out to find him. As taut and propulsive as a thriller, and a timeless exploration of narrative and truth, Twist is the work of a master storyteller at the height of his powers.
McCann may follow Coppola upriver and Conrad to the heart of darkness but the concerns of his novel are contemporary and urgent and utterly compelling. This is an ambitious novel, note perfect, wild but controlled, with its deft apparatus mapping our most mysterious 21st century malaise – the great loneliness of the connected world







