St. Louis, Missouri, is a quietly dying river city until it hires a new police chief: a charismatic young woman from Bombay, India, named S. Jammu. No sooner has Jammu been installed, though, than the city's leading citizens become embroiled in an all-pervasive political conspiracy. A classic of contemporary fiction,The Twenty-Seventh City shows us an ordinary metropolis turned inside out, and the American Dream unraveling into terror and dark comedy. Author Biography: Jonathan Franzen is the author of the novels The Twenty-Seventh City, Strong Motion, and The Corrections . His fiction and nonfiction appear frequently in The New Yorker and Harper's, and he was named one of the best American novelists under forty by Granta and The New Yorker. He lives in New York City.