Search Results for: there will come a darkness

Aidan Jones was my brother. But I couldn’t really remember his face. I couldn’t remember talking to him or playing with him. He was just a gap, an absence, a missing person.

Before she was adopted by a loving family and raised in a leafy Home Counties town, Cass Montgomery was Cass Jones. Her memories of her birth family disappeared with her name. But when her adopted family starts to break down, a way out comes in the form of a message from her lost brother, Aidan. Having Aidan back in her life is both everything she needs and nothing she expected. Who is this boy who calls himself her brother? And why is he so haunted?

I glance at the paper. There’s a big picture on the front page. A girl with dark red hair. A girl with eyes that might have been green or they might have been grey. I sit down and stare at Cass, and it is her, it is. My stolen sister.

Aidan’s a survivor. He’s survived an abusive stepfather and an uncaring mother. He’s survived crowded foster homes and empty bedsits.He’s survived to find Cass. If only he can make her understand what it means to be part of his family. . .

Everything in Echo’s life changed in a blinding flash when she learned the startling truth: she is the firebird, the creature of light that is said to bring peace.

The firebird has come into the world, but it has not come alone. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and Echo can feel a great and terrible darkness rising in the distance. Cosmic forces threaten to tear the world apart.

Echo has already lost her home, her family, and her boyfriend. Now, as the firebird, her path is filled with even greater dangers than the ones she’s already overcome.

She knows the Dragon Prince will not fall without a fight.

Echo must decide: can she wield the power of her true nature – or will it prove too strong for her, and burn what’s left of her world to the ground?

Welcome to the shadow hour.

After five years in the Summerlands, Gideon has gained his freedom. Elizabeth knows he will go straight for Tegan, and that she must protect the girl she had come to regard as her own daughter. In the time since she the dramatic night in Batchcombe woods, Tegan has traveled the world learning from all manner of witches, and she is no longer the awkward teenager and novice spellcaster she once was. However, her skills are no match for Gideon’s dark, vengeful power, and he succeeds in capturing her. Will Elizabeth be able to find her? Will they be able to defeat their nemesis once and for all?

In a breathless journey that takes them through history, witch pursues warlock. Three people steeped in magic weave a new story, but not all will survive until the end.

‘This is a compelling thriller that keeps the reader hooked until the end.’ – VOYA starred review

‘Readers will be drawn in by Armstrong’s expert pacing and meticulously constructed mystery. As the Bishop boys and Winter finally piece together the truth, the plot races towards a gripping climax. Fans of April Henry will relish this thriller’ – Booklist

Reeve’s End is the kind of place every kid can’t wait to escape. Each summer, a dozen kids leave and at least a quarter never come back. Winter Crane doesn’t blame them – she plans to do the same in another year. She’ll leave behind the trailer park, and never look back. All she has to do is stay out of trouble.

But then she has a chance encounter with a boy called Lennon, injured and left for dead in the woods. Her discovery has Winter questioning everything she thought she knew about her sleepy town. And when Lennon vanishes and his brother Jude comes looking for him, things take a sinister turn. Someone wants Winter out of the picture. Can she trust Jude? Or will he deliver them both into the hands of a stalker?

A gripping YA thriller by New York Times number one bestseller Kelley Armstrong.

Books by Kelley Armstrong:

Women of the Otherworld series
Bitten
Stolen
Dime Store Magic
Industrial Magic
Haunted
Broken
No Humans Involved
Personal Demon
Living with the Dead
Frost Bitten
Walking the Witch
Spellbound
Thirteen

Nadia Stafford
Exit Strategy
Made to be Broken
Wild Justice

Rockton
City of the Lost
A Darkness Absolute
This Fallen Prey
Watcher in the Woods
Alone in the Wild

Darkest Powers
The Summoning
The Awakening
The Reckoning

Otherworld Tales
Men of the Otherworld
Tales of the Otherworld
Otherworld Nights
Otherworld Secrets
Otherworld Chills

Darkness Rising
The Gathering
The Calling
The Rising

Cainsville
Omens
Visions
Deceptions
Betrayals
Rituals

‘A darkly clever teen murder mystery […] that succeeds in undermining everything you’ve come to believe and trust. S K Wright pulls off a difficult trick with apparent ease’ Crime Review

If I’d told the truth, it would have been fiction.

Everyone loves Eva. Beautiful, bright, fun, generous – she’s perfect.

So when her body is found in a ditch in the local woods the only thing anyone wants to know is: Who could have done this?

It has to be Luke, her boyfriend. He has the motive, the means, the opportunity and he’s no stranger to the police.

Even though the picture is incomplete, the pieces fit. But as time passes, stories change.

Who could have done this? You decide.

It Ends With You is clever and compulsive. It challenges preconceptions, makes you second-guess yourself with each chapter, and it holds an uncomfortable mirror up to the way societies and systems treat outsiders.

‘James and I stayed on at home and everything was quiet and sunny and we got to thinking the war would never come after all . . . Just when we were so sure nothing would happen, the German plane came over. It came over one night at one o’clock in the morning and the sound was quite different from an English plane and we all woke up. You could hear it drumming and drumming like a big bee in a flower, buroom, buroom, buroom, round and round in the air above the house. Then suddenly there were five loud explosions. After that there was a terrible silence and I knew that Father and Mother were looking at each other in the darkness and I felt myself getting small and tight inside. Then Father said quietly, “Meg, they must go!”‘

Now I am going to write a Diary because we are going to America because of the War. It has just been decided. I will write down everything about it because we shall be so much older when we come back that I will never remember it if I do not. So this is the beginning. Oh, please let us come back soon, please.’

This is the fictional diary of Sabrina Lind, an eleven-year-old English girl who, with her little brother James, is sent on the long voyage across the sea to her aunt in America.

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE HANDMAID’S TALE, THE TESTAMENTS AND ALIAS GRACE

‘Dark and witty tales from the gleefully inventive Margaret Atwood. Witty verve, imaginative inventiveness and verbal sizzle vivify every page’ Sunday Times

A recently widowed fantasy writer is guided through a stormy winter evening by the voice of her late husband. An elderly lady with Charles Bonnet syndrome comes to terms with the little people she keeps seeing, while a newly formed populist group gathers to burn down her retirement residence. A woman born with a genetic abnormality is mistaken for a vampire, and a crime committed long ago is revenged in the Arctic via a 1.9 billion-year-old stromatolite.

‘A collection of nine acerbic, mischievous, gulpable short stories’ Harper’s Bazaar

‘Atwood’s prose is so sharp and sly that the effect is bracing rather than bleak’ Guardian

‘[Look at these tales] as eight icily refreshing arsenic Popsicles followed by a baked Alaska laced with anthrax, all served with impeccable style and aplomb. Enjoy!’ Ursula K. Le Guin, Financial Times

‘Atwood has characters here close to death, dead already, unwittingly doomed or – in one memorable case – freeze-dried; but her own curiosity, enthusiasm and sheer storytelling panache remain alive and kicking’ Independent

‘An indelible portrait of a brilliant, beautiful, mad and maddening woman, expressing the joy of holding her mercurial attention and also the terrible cost of that intimacy…No-one who reads this captivating book will ever forget Maman‘ Andrew Solomon

A prize-winning tour de force when it came out in France, this brilliant translation of Violaine Huisman’s ‘witty, immersive autofiction showcases a Parisian childhood with a charismatic, depressed parent’ (Oprah Daily. Beautiful and magnetic, Catherine, aka ‘Maman’, smokes too much, drives too fast, laughs too hard and loves too extravagantly. During a joyful and chaotic childhood, her daughter Violaine wouldn’t have it any other way.

But when Maman is hospitalised after a third divorce and breakdown, everything changes. Even as Violaine and her sister long for their mother’s return, once she’s back Maman’s violent mood swings and flagrant disregard for personal boundaries soon turn their home into an emotional landmine. As the story of Catherine’s own traumatic childhood and coming of age unfolds, the pieces come together to form an indelible portrait of a mother as irresistible as she is impossible, as triumphant as she is transgressive.

With spectacular ferocity of language, a streak of dark humor and stunning emotional bravery, The Book of Mother is an exquisitely wrought story of a mother’s dizzying heights and devastating lows, and a daughter who must hold her memory close in order to let go.

‘AN OUTSTANDING DEBUT’ CHERIE JONES, author of How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps her House

‘VIVID AND AUTHENTIC’ LEONE ROSS, author of This One Sky Day

At eighteen years old, Dinah gave away her baby son to the rich couple she worked for before they left Jamaica. They never returned. She never forgot him.

Eighteen years later, a young man comes from the US to Kingston. From the moment she sees him, Dinah never doubts – this is her son.

What happens next will make everyone question what they know and where they belong.

A powerful story of belonging, identity and inheritance, What a Mother’s Love Don’t Teach You brings together a blazing chorus of voices to evoke Jamaica’s ghetto, dance halls, criminal underworld and corrupt politics, at the beating heart of which is a mother’s unshakeable love for her son.

‘TAKES US ON A WONDERFUL MULTIFACETED JOURNEY THORUGH THE LIVES, LOVES, PLEASURES AND ATROCITIES OF THE FOLKS OF KINGSTON’ JACOB ROSS, author of The Bone Readers

‘A PROPULSIVE AND BREATHTAKING STORY’ MAISY CARD, author of These Ghosts are Family

‘A GRIPPING PAGE-TURNER’ CAMILLE HERNÁNDEZ-RAMDWAR, author of Suite as Sugar and Other Stories

‘AN EXCITING READ’ YEWANDE OMOTOSO, author of An Unusual Grief

‘A WONDERFUL DEBUT NOVEL’ GILLIAN ROYES, author of the Shad series

‘TAYLOR’S GREAT ACCOMPLISHMENT IS HOW SHE CAPTURES THE DARKNESS OF THE GHETTO WHILE NEVER DIMMING THE VIVACITY, DETERMINATION AND EXUBERANCE DISPLAYED BY ITS PEOPLE. THIS IS A THRILLING READ’ CELESTE MOHAMMED, author of Pleasantview

An eerily brilliant and spooky tale of spiritualism and deception

‘Now you know why you are drawn to me – why your flesh comes creeping to mine, and what it comes for. Let it creep.’

From the dark heart of a Victorian prison, disgraced spiritualist Selina Dawes weaves an enigmatic spell. Is she a fraud, or a prodigy? By the time it all begins to matter, you’ll find yourself desperately wanting to believe in magic.

‘Refined, repressed and simmering… a delicious tale of Victorian spiritualism’ Independent on Sunday

‘Spooky, spellbinding, exquisitely written’ Val Hennessy

‘Beautifully, atmospherically written, this is a tale to thrill your very soul’ Metro

‘Sexy, spooky, stylish… a wonderful book’ Guardian

‘Palm-tingling sensation … captivating … a completely convincing imaginative performance … enthralling’ The Times

On the face of it, Ben Bradford is your standard Wall Street hot shot – Junior partner in a legal firm, 6 figure income, wife and two young kids straight out of a Gap catalogue. But along with the WASP lifestyle comes the sting – Ben hates it. He wants – has always wanted – to be a photographer.

When he discovers his wife has fallen in love with another man, the consequences of a moment of madness force him to question not just the design of his life but the price of fulfilment. Because finding yourself means nothing when you’re pretending to be someone else.

From the picket fences of yuppie New England to Montana’s untouchable splendour, The Big Picture spans states and states of mind in a thrilling novel of genuine originality.

Reviews for The Big Picture

‘The Horse Whisperer recast by Patricia Highsmith … a compulsive page-turner and a dark moral
fable’ Mail on Sunday

‘Kennedy’s skill is to send you racing down the slope of sheer story’ Esquire

Called an uneasy peace, the twenty years between the wars were a time of turmoil – Britain saw a general strike and the worst economic crisis in its history, armed rebellion in Ireland and open revolt in India, a Prime Minister’s resignation and the King’s abdication. Crisis followed crisis until Britain was engulfed in the Second World War – a catastrophe that could have been foreseen, possibly even prevented. But there were also moments of triumph: England regained the Ashes and Britain ran to glory in the ‘Chariots of Fire’ Olympic Games; the BBC was born and became the envy of the free world; there was a renaissance in poetry, sculpture of genius, and cinema lightened the darkness for millions. However it is the politicians who failed who have really come to personify the interwar years – in particular Ramsey MacDonald and Stanley Baldwin. Both prime ministers were better men than history allows. And Winston Churchill? Right or wrong, success or failure, he is the irrepressible force in what he called the ‘years for the locusts to eat’. Hattersley’s assessment of this doomed era is illuminating, entertaining and bold.

‘Ingenious and entertaining’ Sunday Times
‘ Byron himself would have been pleased by such an eerie, erudite addition to his myth’ Time Out

Infamous poet Lord Byron comes to life with incendiary brilliance in this spellbinding blend of gothic imagination and documented fact.

Wandering in the mountains of Greece, the supreme sensualist is drawn to the beauty of a mysterious fugitive slave; soon he is utterly entranced, and his fate is sealed. He embarks on a life of adventure even his genius could not have foreseen; chosen to enjoy powers beyond those any vampire has ever known, Byron traverses the centuries and enters a dark, intoxicating world of long-lost secrets, ancient arts and scorching excesses of evil.

But Byron’s gift is also his torment: an all-consuming thirst that withers life at the root, damning all those he loves.

With its impeccable scholarship and breathtaking storytelling, THE VAMPYRE is a wonderful combination of fact and fantasy.

For many men, middle age arrives too fast and without due warning. One day you are young, free and single; the next you are bald, fat and washed-up, with weird tendrils of hair growing out of your ears. None of it seems fair. With age should come dignity and respect, but instead everyone makes tired jokes about buying a motorbike.

Marcus Berkmann isn’t having it. Having marked his fiftieth birthday by hiding under the duvet for six weeks, the author of the cricket classics Rain Men and Zimmer Men is now determined to find some light in the all-consuming darkness. Musing over birth, death and all the messy stuff in between, he concludes that however dreadful you look in the mirror today, it will be much worse in ten years’ time. His brutally candid despatch from the frontline is not for the faint-hearted, which is to say anyone under thirty-five.

‘Amazing. I’d give someone else’s right arm to write so beautifully’ Sarah Pinborough

‘Superb! The Devil’s Playground is imagination on steroids… breathtaking!’ Jeffery Deaver

‘A terrifying tale of the true power in Hollywood… (Russell’s) precise, gorgeous prose shines’ New York Times

‘A masterpiece. Captivatingly authentic, steeped in Hollywood lore’ Chris Brookmyre

‘Addictive. . . the most sheerly entertaining novel I’ve raced through in at least a year. . . fresh, forceful, elegant but wild’ A.J. Finn

‘The Devil’s Playground is definitely on the shortlist for best mystery of the year’ Bookpage.com

‘When it comes to Gothic crime, Craig Russell is peerless. Absolutely stunning’ M W Craven

FROM CWA DAGGER AND DOUBLE McILVANNEY AWARD WINNER CRAIG RUSSELL COMES ANOTHER DARK, GRIPPING MASTERPIECE . . .

A dark, riveting thriller set in 1920s Hollywood about “the greatest horror movie ever made”, the curse said to surround it, and a deadly search, decades later, for the single copy rumoured still to exist.

1927: Hollywood studio fixer Mary Rourke is called to the palatial home of “the most desirable woman in the world”, silent movie actress Norma Carlton, star of The Devil’s Playground. When Rourke finds Carlton dead, she wonders if the dark rumours she’s heard are true: that The Devil’s Playground really is a cursed production. But nothing in Hollywood is ever what it seems, and cynical fixer Rourke, more used to covering up the truth for studio bosses, finds herself seeking it out.

1967: Paul Conway, film historian and fervid silent movie aficionado, is on the trail of a tantalizing rumour: that a single copy of The Devil’s Playground-a Holy Grail for film buffs that was supposedly cursed and lost to time-may exist. His search takes him deep into the Mojave Desert, to an isolated hotel that hasn’t changed in forty years but harbours only one occupant-and a shocking secret.

Separated by decades, both Rourke and Conway begin to suspect that the real Devil’s Playground is in fact Hollywood itself.

Praise for The Devil’s Playground

‘Horrifying, mesmerising, beautifully imagined. The Devil’s Playground is Craig Russell at his unrivalled best’ Chris Whittaker

‘The Devil’s Playground has a depth of period detail and atmosphere that lifts it above the ordinary. It’s elegant, absorbing and thrilling’ Michael Malone

‘Totally engaging’ Kathy Reichs, New York Times bestselling author of the Temperance Brennan series

‘Brilliantly written, with repeated surprises’ The Critic

‘Seamlessly blends noir, gothic and mystery in a way that’s unique to crime fiction. Populated with a truly memorable cast, Playground is a guaranteed one-sitting read…and how can you resist a novel about the scariest movie of all time? Bravo!’ Jeffery Deaver, author of The Bone Collector

Praise for Hyde

‘Stephen King meets Robert Louis Stevenson… an imaginative gothic tale guaranteed to send a shiver down your spine the next time you walk a dark Edinburgh night’ David Hewson

‘Gloriously diabolical. A terrifying thrill ride through the hidden chasms of the human soul’ Chris Brookmyre

‘I absolutely adored it. Intense, harrowing and hugely entertaining. . . Spectacular’ Chris Whitaker

‘The story is a thrilling ride through the murky depths of madness and horror, written with all Craig’s trademark skill and style. Definitely five stars from me’ James Oswald

‘An engaging Gothic thriller full of atmosphere and surprises’ Irish Independent

‘Russell writes a pacy, ever-twisting mystery that will keep you turning the pages’ Ian Rankin


Praise for Craig Russell

‘A masterclass in suspenseful, character-driven prose fiction. Simply exceptional’
Frank Darabont, writer & director of The Shawshank Redemption & The Green Mile

‘It was a night that would be long remembered. The Florence police would come to call it a night of horror, the start of a new nightmare . . .’

After enduring years at the mercy of an infamous serial killer, the people of Florence rejoice at news of his death – until a senator is found brutally murdered.

To Chief Superintendent Michele Ferrara the case is very much alive. But, with a powerful adversary conspiring against him, he is trapped in a spiral of corruption and deadly speculation. As the truth comes to light, Ferrara is left standing face-to-face with something truly rotten at the heart of the city . . .

The Dark Heart of Florence is an evocative, gripping work of detective fiction, and a major bestseller across Europe.

Originally published in Italian as I Sogni Cattivi di Firenze.

‘A crime author with impeccable credentials: Giuttari is no less than the former head of the Florence police force, where he was on the case of the notorious serial killer The Monster of Florence. Who better to write about the dark undercurrents beneath the surface of the city?’ Booklist

A brutal killer is on the streets of Rome.
He leaves no trace. And shows no mercy.

A series of gruesome murders leaves the police force in Rome reeling, with no real clues or hard evidence to follow. Assigned to the case is Sandra Vega, a brilliant forensic analyst, struggling to come to terms with the crimes and her own past. Sandra’s shared history with Marcus, a member of the ancient Penitenzeri – a unique Italian team, linked to the Vatican, and trained in the detection of true evil, means that the two are brought together again in the pursuit of a malignant killer.

Soon Marcus and Sandra notice the emergence of a disturbing pattern running alongside the latest killings – and every time they think they have grasped a fragment of the truth, they are led down yet another terrifying path.

A sensational new literary thriller from the bestselling author of The Whisperer, this novel captures the beautiful atmosphere of Rome and explores its dark and hidden secrets.

‘Oliver Harris is always pure quality and I’m loving the hell out of his foray into the contemporary spy novel’ Ian Rankin

‘Scary if true, or even half true’ Sunday Times star pick

There is a dark side to MI6 that needs men like Elliot Kane – mercurial, inquisitive, free floating. He’s spent fifteen years managing events overseas that never make the papers, deniable and deeply effective. Kane is a ghost in his own life, picking up and dropping personalities as each new cover story comes into play. But when a woman he loves, Joanna Lake, vanishes without a trace in Kazakhstan, he is forced centre stage.

Drawn ever deeper into a realm of deception, Kane moves from merely infiltrating events to steering them. He’s used to a new mode of hybrid psychological warfare – but snowbound Kazakhstan presents unique challenges. Poised between China, Russia and the West, dictatorship and democracy, state intelligence and an increasingly powerful world of private agencies, it’s impossible to work out who is manipulating who. And Kane’s not the only one trying to figure out where Joanna Lake has gone or what she learned before disappearing.

Unable to trust anyone, hunted by his own colleagues, and with the life of someone he loves at stake, Kane needs to work out who is driving events, and why…

Readers say:

‘Damn, Harris knows what he is talking about, and damn if he doesn’t stream that knowledge hard and fast through a sniper’s ricocheting trickshot of a plot’ five star reader review

‘I love the geopolitical skullduggery, the contemporary Great Game … and it does feel contemporary. It puts espionage solidly in the digital world without losing the essence – people on the ground’ five star reader review

‘Up there with LeCarre in my view. I’ll get everything he’s written now’ five star reader review

‘Gloriously dark, deliciously twisty’ CLARE MACKINTOSH

ONE FAMILY, TWO HOLIDAYS, ONE DEVASTATING SECRET

To new nanny Amanda, the Temple family seem to have it all: the former actress; the famous professor; their three successful grown-up children. But like any family, beneath the smiles and hugs there lurks far darker emotions.

Sixteen years earlier, little Niamh Temple died while they were on holiday in Portugal. Now, as Amanda joins the family for a reunion at their seaside villa, she begins to suspect one of them might be hiding something terrible…

And suspicion is a dangerous thing.

From Chris Brookmyre, winner of the Theakstons and McIllvanney awards for Black Widow, comes a standalone psychological thriller full of twists, lies and betrayal.

PRAISE FOR CHRIS BROOKMYRE

‘Guaranteed to keep you guessing’
Ian Rankin

‘Extremely sophisticated crime’
Sunday Times

‘Exceptionally good’
Guardian

‘In the pantheon of great crime writers’
Elly Griffiths

‘Scales new heights of invention’
Times Literary Supplement

‘Brookmyre writes beautifully . . . I was hooked’
Literary Review

‘Illuminating!’ Professor Brian Cox

‘Every Steve Jones book is a masterclass in clear and captivating writing with tantalising detours into beguiling anecdotes. Here Comes the Sun is dense with ideas and stories and, like all his books, it will change the way you see the world around you’ Robin Ince

Our sun drives the weather, forms the landscape, feeds and fuels – but sometimes destroys – the creatures that live upon it, controls their patterns of activity, makes chemicals in the skin that cheer up those who bask in its rays, and for the ancients was the seat of divine authority.

In Here Comes the Sun, Steve Jones shows how life on Earth is ruled by our nearest star. It is filled with unexpected connections; between the need to stay cool and man’s ability to stand upright, between the power of memory and the onset of darkness, between the flow of solar energy through the plants and animals and of wealth through society, and between Joseph Goebbel’s 1938 scheme to make Edinburgh the summer capital of a defeated Britain and the widening gap in the life expectancy of Scottish men compared to that of other European men brought on by thnat nation’s cloudy climate.

Its author charts some of his own research in places hot and cold across the globe on the genetic and evolutionary effects of sunlight on snails, fruit-flies and people and shows how what was once no more an eccentric specialism has grown to become a subject of wide scientific, social and political significance. Stunningly evocative, beautifully written and packed full of insight, Here Comes the Sun is Steve Jones’s most personal book to date.

Preorder Chris Brookmy’re stunning, unique new novel THE CRACKED MIRROR now

A BBC Radio 2 Book Club pick

‘Strikingly original and definitively Brookmyre – there’s nothing he can’t do’
Mick Herron

‘I recommend The Cut SO HIGHLY! A fast-paced thriller, lovely characters, [and] it kept me guessing’
Marian Keyes

The supremely entertaining, moving, and unpredictable new thriller from multi-award-winning bestseller Chris Brookmyre is a wholly original masterpiece and the best crime novel of 2021.

Millie Spark can kill anyone.

A special effects make-up artist, her talent is to create realistic scenes of bloody violence.

Then, one day, she wakes to find her lover dead in her bed.

Twenty-five years later, her sentence for murder served, Millicent is ready to give up on her broken life – until she meets troubled film student and reluctant petty thief Jerry.

Together, they begin to discover that all was not what it seemed on that fateful night . . . and someone doesn’t want them to find out why.

‘A twisty spiralling rabbit hole of a book that draws you deeper with every chapter. Brilliantly original, compulsively readable, right to the final page’
Ruth Ware

‘Dark, heartfelt, stylish and thrilling, The Cut is the kind of wonderfully original tale I just adore. Chris Brookmyre is a storytelling mastermind’
Chris Whitaker

‘This is a special novel. A brilliant, original, up-to-the-minute tale with all of the dark, edgy, humorous brilliance we’ve come to expect from one of the finest crime fiction writers in the world. The Cut is simply superb’
Abir Mukherjee

‘Chris Brookmyre is a genius, every new book of his is a cause for celebration’ — RICHARD OSMAN

‘Keeps you guessing until the very end – after an avalanche of revelations and twists’ — THE TIMES, BOOK OF THE MONTH

One hen weekend, seven secrets… but only one worth killing for

Jen’s hen party is going to be out of control…

She’s rented a luxury getaway on its own private island. The helicopter won’t be back for seventy-two hours. They are alone. They think.

As well as Jen, there’s the pop diva and the estranged ex-bandmate, the tennis pro and the fashion guru, the embittered ex-sister-in-law and the mouthy future sister-in-law.

It’s a combustible cocktail, one that takes little time to ignite, and in the midst of the drunken chaos, one of them disappears. Then a message tells them that unless someone confesses her terrible secret to the others, their missing friend will be killed.

Problem is, everybody has a secret. And nobody wants to tell.

PRAISE FOR CHRIS BROOKMYRE

‘Strikingly original and definitively Brookmyre – there’s nothing he can’t do’
Mick Herron

‘I recommend The Cut SO HIGHLY! A fast-paced thriller, lovely characters, [and] it kept me guessing’
Marian Keyes

‘A twisty spiralling rabbit hole of a book that draws you deeper with every chapter. Brilliantly original, compulsively readable, right to the final page’
Ruth Ware

‘Dark, heartfelt, stylish and thrilling, the kind of wonderfully original tale I just adore. Chris Brookmyre is a storytelling mastermind’
Chris Whitaker

‘This is a special novel. A brilliant, original, up-to-the-minute tale with all of the dark, edgy, humorous brilliance we’ve come to expect from one of the finest crime fiction writers in the world’
Abir Mukherjee

London, Burning is a novel about the end of the 1970s, and the end of an era. It concerns a nation divided against itself, a government trembling on the verge of collapse, a city fearful of what is to come, and a people bitterly suspicious of one another. In other words, it is also a novel about now.

Vicky Tress is a young policewoman on the rise who becomes involved in a corruption imbroglio with CID. Hannah Strode is an ambitious young reporter with a speciality for skewering the rich and powerful. Callum Conlan is a struggling Irish academic and writer who falls in with the wrong people. While Freddie Selves is a hugely successful theatre impresario stuck deep in a personal and political mire of his own making. These four characters, strangers at the start, happen to meet and affect the course of each other’s lives profoundly. As the clock ticks down towards a general election old alliances totter and the new broom of capitalist enterprise threatens to sweep all before it. It is funny and dark, violent but also moving.

Thirty-nine, divorced, jobless: Benedick Hunter is going nowhere, heading in the exact opposite direction he expected. So when he comes across a children’s book that his mother, Laura, wrote, he decides that her life and work – haunting stories replete with sinister woods, wicked witches and brave girls who battle giants – hold the key to finding out why his own life is such a mess.

Setting out to discover why Laura killed herself when he was six, Benedick travels to the US. As he grows more obsessed with what happened to his mother, Benedick enters into a dark wood – one that is both hilariously real and terrifyingly psychological. Dark humorous and inventive, In a Dark Wood casts light on the nature of depression, genius and of the healing power of storytelling.