Only Forward

Only Forward
Michael Marshall Smith

Michael Marshall Smith’s surreal, groundbreaking, and award-winning debut which resonates with wild humour interlaced with dark recollections of an emotional minefield. Now part of the Voyager Classics collection.May we introduce you to Stark.Oh, and by the way — good luck.Stark is the private investigator who goes to work when Something Happens to you. And when a Something happens it’s no good chanting ‘go away go away go away’ and cowering in a corner, because a Something always comes from your darkest past and won’t be beaten until you face it. And that’s not easy in a city where reality is twisting and broken, a world in which friends can become enemies in a heartbeat — and where your most secret fear can become a soul-shredding reality.And the worst of it is, for this nightmare you don’t even have to be asleep…Considered a modern classic, and consistently featured in lists of Books To Read Before Your Head Explodes, ONLY FORWARD is a novel you'll never forget.

Only Forward

Michael Marshall Smith

Copyright (#ulink_7de9fbf6-7a53-59bc-b057-65689a73d750)

HarperVoyager

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk (http://www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain as a Paperback Original by

HarperCollinsPublishers 1994

Copyright © Michael Marshall Smith 1994

Excerpt from ‘Silent all these years’ written by Tori Amos, copyright © Sword and Stone Music 1991.Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

Michael Marshall Smith asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008117443

Ebook Edition © April 2015 ISBN: 9780007325368

Version: 2015-04-15

Dedication (#ulink_d439ebf8-fb70-518c-b3c4-3723a615693b)

For my family: David, Margaret and Tracey, and in memory of Mr Cat.

Contents

Cover (#ue628430c-fad5-5e96-85a5-012599fdb5f3)

Title (#u98d6f1cc-36fe-584b-b404-a68b6d0f8a23)

Copyright (#u3a621ab3-9042-5ebe-b614-151736e65cef)

Dedication (#ua18568ed-df57-5644-821e-710648c0bb51)

Introduction by Neil Gaiman (#u177b8d8d-88a8-5afe-b298-876cd1ed9b6a)

PART ONE: The Paper Over the Cracks (#u0edb1dc4-74e2-5c6b-b16d-2174f07d032b)

The beginning (#u8c1cba38-d9e1-5cb0-81ad-cfc9f2d9886d)

One (#u1dd6f583-df4f-5347-8b7e-83457831c2d2)

Two (#u99329978-645d-510c-bfb4-b44317d2220f)

Three (#uaf51f497-066a-562e-8b3d-7f1495c7b54a)

Four (#ue778d21a-d894-549a-8042-5e5ec1c00906)

Five (#u5d0eecb5-aa33-5bfc-9335-49eb96aa424e)

Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

PART TWO: Some Lies (#litres_trial_promo)

Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

PART THREE: Requiem (#litres_trial_promo)

Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)