Instances of the Number 3 (Paperback, New Ed)

When Peter Hansome dies in a car crash he leaves behind a wife and a mistress – but as these women confront their loss death becomes not an end but a beginning.

This beguiling novel explores the mysterious power of triangles: a man, his wife and his mistress – and two other people he may have known. Bridget Hansome, Shakespeare lover, and Frances Slater, former artist's model, are unconventional women and following Peter's death unexpectedly they become friends. But who is the young Iranian boy who also befriends the two women and comes to live with Peter's widow? And what was Peter's connection to him and to his even more elusive sister?

'Instances of the Number 3' is a highly original, thought-provoking book about the links between moral choice, art, acting and personal identity. It is an intriguing evocation of universal instances of triads – mother, father and child; artist, model and painting; heaven, hell and purgatory; even the Holy Trinity itself – and an audacious, and witty, exposition on larger questions about life, death and possible other levels of existence.