Patient X: The Case-Book of Ryunosuke Akutagawa

David Peace writes the boldest and most original British fiction of his generation.

One of the most original and intriguing books you’ll read this year.

Replicates the curious but damaged psyche of its subject . . . a powerful study of story-telling.

One of the most memorable stories in the book, the phantasmagoric “Jack the Ripper’s Bedroom” . . . reads like something by Edgar Allen Poe set in Edwardian London with a Japanese protagonist, and concludes with a nod and a wink to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

Experimental and poetic, this compelling portrait of one of Japan’s most influential writers is expertly captured by the dark magic and literary genius of David Peace. His most elegant novel to date.

As a work of tribute, Patient X is superlative: exacting, precise and filled with the suffocating sense of foreboding generated by the master’s own best stories . . . Peace is not simply a masterfully controlled stylist but a magnificently atmospheric one, composing hypnotic collages.