Excerpt from Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick deWitt, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

She was not shy, which made him feel shy. She had pressed him against the far wall of the ballroom, and as she undid his trousers Lucy studied her with an idolization so vast it took on physical properties in his heart; the size and weight of it was frightening for him in that he felt he could not contain it. At certain moments in their coupling she became feverish, and it seemed to Lucy she was not herself at all, but possessed by some spirit he hadn't yet known. He gripped her skull and marvelled at its diminutive delicacy, puzzling over how it could be that so frail a vessel might possess such a force as Klara possessed. At the apex of his passion his body was flooded in light. Lucy had never been so moved.

Klara stood and corrected herself, straightening the hem of her dress with a sensible tug of the wrists. She was smiling with sly pride, and she told him, "I'll go first." Lucy nodded but didn't answer. After she had gone he remained leaning against the wall, legs atremble, trousers still bunched at his ankles. What an eventful day I'm having, he thought.

* * *

This sentiment was compounded when the doors swung open and the partygoers entered in a hysterical troupe. Lucy slipped crabwise to stand behind the curtain at his right; he could think of no way to pull up his trousers without bringing attention to himself, and so was forced to leave them be. He stood for a time in the darkness behind the heavy fabric but soon folded back the edge of the curtain, that he might catch a glimpse of the group; and it was from this vantage point that Lucy could and did witness and catalogue the strange and terrible ballroom goings-on. All were present save for the Count, who some moments later scampered into the room, the tart wrapped up in his arms like a swaddled infant, his face descriptive of a perceived immortality.

"Look at how merry he is," said the Countess.

"Remarkably so," the Duchess commented.

"Can one be too merry, I wonder?" asked the Baroness.

"One can not," the Count announced, resting the tart atop the table. "For joy carries no consequence, and is desirous of nothing save for more joy." As the group digested the statement, the Count stood by, admiring the dessert, smiling sleepily, the picture of satisfied docility. But then some black violence or another occurred in his mind, and a look of cruelty came over him. He punched his fist dead into the centre of the virgin tart.

Excerpted from Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick deWitt. Copyright © 2015 by Patrick deWitt. Excerpted by permission of Ecco. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.