Headhunter

In a morally and environmentally barren Toronto, in the near future, schizophrenic former English professor Lilah Kemp accidentally unleashes Kurtz from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness one winter's day, and can't get him back. Starlings die from a new disease outside, and death squads rove the streets killing the birds before the disease can spread to humans. In wealthy boardrooms and bedrooms, the rich and powerful create a sprawling cloud of corruption. Psychiatrist Dr. Marlow enters the chaos on a mission he does not expect: to return Kurtz. Timothy Findley's best-selling Headhunter is an eloquent, entertaining and fascinating moral tale.

It all starts when Lilah Kemp - librarian, spiritualist, schizophrenic - inadvertantly lets Kurtz out of page 92 of Heart of Darkness and is unable to get him back in.

While Kurtz is stalking the streets of Toronto, Lilah frantically begins her search for Marlow to help her deal with the literary villain

Meanwhile, the city is becoming increasingly chaotic and terrifying. The rich and powerful are engaged in a web of depravity, a new and horrifying disease called sturnusemia has swept the city, and severly traumatized children are turning up at the local psychiatric institutes. Kurtz seems to be at the centre of it all.

Lilah, witness to events tearing the very fabric of her society, seeks solace as always in the great works of literature and prays for Marlow to find an capture Kurtz - before it's too late.

Timothy Findley was one of CanadaÆs most compelling and best loved writers, from the publication of his first novel in 1967 until his death in June 2002. His acclaimed novels include Spadework, Pilgrim, The Piano ManÆs Daughter, Headhunter, Not Wanted on the Voyage, Famous Last Words and The Wars. Findley was a two-time winner of the Governor GeneralÆs Award: The Wars won the 1977 award for fiction; Elizabeth Rex, a play, won the 2000 award for drama. The recipient of many accolades for his fiction, non-fiction and drama, including the Chalmers Award and the Edgar Award, Findley was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, and a Chevalier de lÆOrdre des Arts et des Lettres in France.