As college roommates, Adam and Tony were on opposite sides of the social spectrum: Adam the campus charmer and Tony the pensive introvert. They shared the same cramped dorm room, the same major in English Lit, and the same infatuation with the same beautiful undergrad. Not much has changed twenty years later. After running into Adam at the London Library, Tony takes inventory of his old rival's successes: Adam has established himself as a famous literary figure, has married Tony's dream girl, and is even writing a book on the same obscure poet. What follows is a series of increasingly erratic missteps that lead to a violent end and it becomes clear that Tony does have one thing that Adam doesn't…nothing to lose.

The Long Sonata of the Dead reimagines a classic tale of intellectual rivalry and a vicious love triangle, a twenty year affair that comes to head in the "booklined garden of Eden." Andrew Taylor's masterful prose breathes life into this character-driven short story that keeps the reader guessing until the very end.

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