Winter time in Paris provides the backdrop to Kay Dick’s novel about obsession, Solitaire.

Between hotel and café life, our narrator meets Roger, Anne’s first husband, and François, their 20-year-old son. As the narrator becomes involved with both father and son, a sense of mystery builds, which her growing intimacy with François, a consciously charming young man, only serves to deepen. When Anne returns under pressure to Paris, the relationship between these four people, linked by ties of past and present love, entwines further.

At once serious and light-hearted, this is also the story of how a novel is written. Solitaire is a game one can play by oneself or with other people; it often invites the onlooker to make a move. It is the sort of game Kay Dick plays with her characters with insight, irony and humour.