Award-winning writer Paul Theroux tells four exhilarating stories of desire in which nothing is as it seems in The Stranger at the Palazzo d'Oro.

A young American walks into Sicily's Palazzo d'Oro during the '60s. Penniless, but swaggering with youth and burgeoning artistic talent, he accepts a proposition to become the companion to a beautiful and beguiling aristocrat. Their affair- formal and restrained by day, torrid and passionate by night - leads him to a place where nothing, not even his lover, is what it seems. This novella and three other tales explore the underbelly of sexual desire and together make up one of Paul Theroux's most compelling works yet.

'Theroux is a distinctive and daring writer. . . he is at his best when shadowing the fugitive feelings which are the outriders of desire' Independent

'A decadent, engrossing collection. Whether evoking the bored sophistication of European aristocrats, or the compulsive smuttiness of American teenagers, Theroux writes with an economy and grace which is hard to resist' Mail on Sunday

'Theroux's eye for detail is seductive and imagination compelling' Irish Independent

American travel writer Paul Theroux is known for the rich descriptions of people and places that is often streaked with his distinctive sense of irony; his novels and collected short stories, My Other Life, The Collected Stories, My Secret History, The Lower River, A Dead Hand, Millroy the Magician, The Elephanta Suite, Saint Jack, The Consul's File, The Family Arsenal, The Mosquito Coast, and his works of non-fiction, including the iconic The Great Railway Bazaar are available from Penguin.