The Nice and the Good

From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea, The Sea comes a story about revenge and reconciliation, and the difference between being nice and being good.
 
John Ducane, a respected Whitehall civil servant, is asked to investigate the suicide of a colleague. As he pursues his inquiry, he uncovers a shabby, evil world of murder, blackmail, and black magic. He begins to feel more trapped than trapping.
 
In contrast to a stagnant summer in London, Octavian and Kate Gray’s adoring community on the Dorset coast seems to offer Ducane refuge, but even here the after-effects of violence poison an atmosphere already electric with adolescent quarrels and intrigue. After a swim into the underworld, Ducane begins to realize that niceness is not enough.
 
"A feast."--The Guardian

• The Bell (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)
• The Sea, the Sea (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics)
• The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (Penguin Books)
• The Black Prince (Penguin Classics)
• The Unicorn
• The Sovereignty of Good
• A Severed Head
• A Fairly Honourable Defeat (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)
• Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (Penguin Philosophy)
• Bruno's Dream