Completely gripping with moments of genuine strangeness and wonder --Alan WarnerCharlie Conti has just come into his inheritance. Young, rich and alone in the world, he decides to leave the echoing luxury of his Manhattan home and head for Los Angeles. He throws wild parties and everyone comes, but he remains on the outside, an isolated figure. Then he meets Ray Celador. Ray has the eyes of a visionary and the rough, gnarled hands of a lumberjack. He deals in drugs, women and philosophy, and before long he's indispensable to Charlie: father-figure, teacher, friend. But who, in the end, is Ray Celador? And who when he finds himself stripped of his home, his money and his identity is Charlie Conti? A thriller with a literary twist, this is the story of Charlie's betrayal, of the theft of his identity and of his attempt to recover what is his. His extraordinary meetings along the way and the magic of America's vast landscapes are captured by a voice that is innocent, wry and thoughtful.