The De Clerambault Code

by Nora Johnson

A tense, taut tale of mounting suspense and chilling drama. An intricately plotted psychological thriller that explores obsession, madness, betrayal and fear. She has an affair. She ends it. She thinks it's finished. She's fatally miscalculated... On the same evening Laura Hill first meets Sean Cazaly, her secretary Katie is attacked by 'happy slapping' thugs and Sonila arrives from Albania as part of a human trafficking scam targeting Laura's language school. Looking back, the three occurrences seem to merge seamlessly into one, a chain of events leading each in its own way inexorably to violence and, ultimately, death. But at the time, they are quite separate, quite distinct. If only with hindsight, she could now rewind the past like a reel of film, she would never have let it begin, that relationship that began so promisingly but would soon bring about the destruction of all around... What lies ahead is already here - with the shocking revelation of... The De Clerambault Code.

286 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 4, 2011

About the author

Nora Johnson was the daughter of film writer, director and producer Nunnally Johnson, pivotal in such acclaimed films as 'The Grapes of Wrath'. She attended the Brearley School in New York City and in 1954 graduated from Smith College.

Her first and most well-known novel, The World of Henry Orient (1956), was based on her experiences at the Brearley School. In 1964 it was made into a movie produced and co-scripted by her father, Nunnally Johnson, and starring Peter Sellers. In 1957 The Atlantic Monthly published her influential article "Sex and the College Girl", which culled her experiences at Smith to discuss then-current attitudes towards sex on American campuses.