Half Life of Stars Book

Claire's older brother, Daniel, has disappeared. He leaves work one Friday afternoon, shortly before Christmas, and vanishes into thin air. Married, successful, rich, there seems no reason why he would abandon his life. Has he been killed? Has he been kidnapped? Or has he just had enough?

Set between London and Miami, this is the story of a family with ghosts to bury. It opens on the day of the Challenger shuttle explosion at Cape Canaveral: a tragic moment that rips this family apart and sets Daniel's disappearance in motion some 18 years later. In the midst of it all sits Claire—divorced, irresponsible, fluent in six foreign languages yet hopeless at interpreting life. It is Claire who knows Daniel best. It is Claire who becomes convinced that she knows where her older brother is and sets off on a journey to find him.

Publishers Weekly

The search for Daniel Ronson, a British lawyer who disappears soon after the destruction of the space shuttle Columbia in 2003, fuels Wener's third novel to be published in the U.S., but what really propels it off the launch pad is the portrait of Daniel's eccentric younger sister, Claire, who determines to track him down. Wondering if the Columbia tragedy might have triggered a post-traumatic stress reaction (Daniel and Claire's father died of a heart attack shortly after the 1986 Challenger disaster), Claire leaves the U.K. for Miami, where she hopes to find some answers. She gets some sleuthing advice from Huey, a down-on-his-luck actor, and Huey's goofy boa constrictor-loving girlfriend. While a subplot in which Huey plots revenge against real-life producer Harvey Weinstein, whom the actor blames for his sagging career, is funny, it's so strained that it blurs the focus on an otherwise lovely contemplation about recovering from the black holes in every family's life. Wener (The Perfect Play) is the former lead singer of the British pop band Sleeper. (Oct.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.