Mark Edwards's Blog, page 10
June 15, 2015
Follow You Home – Coming June 30th
Follow You Home, the fourth psychological thriller by Mark Edwards, will be published worldwide on June 30th. Available in Kindle, paperback and audiobook versions, Follow You Home tells the chilling story of a dream trip that turns into a nightmare for one young couple.
It was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime, a final adventure before settling down. But after a perfect start, an encounter with a young couple on a night train forces Daniel and Laura to cut their dream trip short and flee home.
Back in London, Daniel and Laura vow never to talk about what happened that night. But as they try to fit into their old lives again, they realise they are in terrible danger—and that their nightmare is just beginning…
The novel, which was inspired by a real-life experience, has already picked up rave reviews from a number of authors and reviewers:
“Twisty, turny and downright creepy in places Mark Edwards has, yet again, produced an unputdownable psychological thriller. He is a master at creating a tangled web of secrets, lies and red herrings so cleverly constructed that I was kept guessing all the way through. Highly recommended.”
CL Taylor, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Accident
“Once you start reading you won’t be able to stop…This is my first Mark Edwards book but I will now be reading every one.”
Angela Marsons, No.1 bestselling author of Silent Scream
“Keep the lights on. ALL the lights. Every room. I had to sleep with a night light when I’d finished it.”
Liz Barnsley, Liz Loves Books
“Fast-paced and twisted: it’s another Mark Edwards sensation.”
Clare Mackintosh, Sunday Times bestselling author of I Let You Go
“Follow You Home races along with the pace of a runaway train. Mark Edwards has the rare talent of dragging the reader in from pretty much the first sentence. I wish I knew how he does it.”
Sarah Lotz, author of The Three
“Full of creeping menace, Mark Edwards’ distinctive brand of domestic noir will make you think twice about talking to strangers when you next go on holiday.”
Nick Quantrill, author of the Joe Geraghty series
“Dark, disturbing and scarily realistic – if you’re a fan of Stephen King, you’ll love this.”
SJI Holliday, author of Black Wood
“Another fast-paced, tension-packed read from the writer of The Magpies. Hide behind your cushion scary, Follow You Home had my heart thumping from chapter one.”
Jenny Blackhurst, author of How I Lost You
“Follow You Home hauls you in from the first page and keep you dangling till the last. Edwards has cornered the market in compelling, readable fiction.”
Ava Marsh, author of Untouchable
You can pre-order Follow You Home now:
Follow You Home – Coming June 30th
Follow You Home, the fourth psychological thriller by Mark Edwards, will be published worldwide on June 30th. Available in Kindle, paperback and audiobook versions, Follow You Home tells the chilling story of a dream trip that turns into a nightmare for one young couple.
It was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime, a final adventure before settling down. But after a perfect start, an encounter with a young couple on a night train forces Daniel and Laura to cut their dream trip short and flee home.
Back in London, Daniel and Laura vow never to talk about what happened that night. But as they try to fit into their old lives again, they realise they are in terrible danger—and that their nightmare is just beginning…
The novel, which was inspired by a real-life experience, has already picked up rave reviews from a number of authors and reviewers:
“Twisty, turny and downright creepy in places Mark Edwards has, yet again, produced an unputdownable psychological thriller. He is a master at creating a tangled web of secrets, lies and red herrings so cleverly constructed that I was kept guessing all the way through. Highly recommended.”
CL Taylor, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Accident
“Once you start reading you won’t be able to stop…This is my first Mark Edwards book but I will now be reading every one.”
Angela Marsons, No.1 bestselling author of Silent Scream
“Keep the lights on. ALL the lights. Every room. I had to sleep with a night light when I’d finished it.”
Liz Barnsley, Liz Loves Books
“Fast-paced and twisted: it’s another Mark Edwards sensation.”
Clare Mackintosh, Sunday Times bestselling author of I Let You Go
“Follow You Home races along with the pace of a runaway train. Mark Edwards has the rare talent of dragging the reader in from pretty much the first sentence. I wish I knew how he does it.”
Sarah Lotz, author of The Three
“Full of creeping menace, Mark Edwards’ distinctive brand of domestic noir will make you think twice about talking to strangers when you next go on holiday.”
Nick Quantrill, author of the Joe Geraghty series
“Dark, disturbing and scarily realistic – if you’re a fan of Stephen King, you’ll love this.”
SJI Holliday, author of Black Wood
“Another fast-paced, tension-packed read from the writer of The Magpies. Hide behind your cushion scary, Follow You Home had my heart thumping from chapter one.”
Jenny Blackhurst, author of How I Lost You
“Follow You Home hauls you in from the first page and keep you dangling till the last. Edwards has cornered the market in compelling, readable fiction.”
Ava Marsh, author of Untouchable
You can pre-order Follow You Home now:
BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME
When Andrew Sumner meets beautiful, edgy Charlie, he is certain his run of bad luck has finally come to an end…
A gripping tale of jealousy, obsession and murder, from the No.1 Bestselling author of The Magpies.
When Andrew Sumner meets beautiful, edgy Charlie, he is certain his run of bad luck has finally come to an end.
But as the two of them embark on an intense affair, Andrew wonders if his grasp on reality is slipping. Items go missing in his apartment. Somebody appears to be following him. And as misfortune and tragedy strike his friends and loved ones, Andrew is forced to confront the frightening truth…
Is Charlie really the girl of his dreams – or the woman of his nightmares?
BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME
When Andrew Sumner meets beautiful, edgy Charlie, he is certain his run of bad luck has finally come to an end…
A gripping tale of jealousy, obsession and murder, from the No.1 Bestselling author of The Magpies.
When Andrew Sumner meets beautiful, edgy Charlie, he is certain his run of bad luck has finally come to an end.
But as the two of them embark on an intense affair, Andrew wonders if his grasp on reality is slipping. Items go missing in his apartment. Somebody appears to be following him. And as misfortune and tragedy strike his friends and loved ones, Andrew is forced to confront the frightening truth…
Is Charlie really the girl of his dreams – or the woman of his nightmares?
How My Trip From Hell Inspired Follow You Home
Like my previous novels, The Magpies and Because She Loves Me, Follow You Home was inspired by something that happened to me when I was younger, an experience that I took and turned into something much scarier in order to entertain my readers.
When I was nineteen, my then-girlfriend and I scraped together our pennies so we could go Inter-Railing around Europe. We spent months planning our itinerary, intending to head on a whistle-stop tour of the continent that would last the entire summer. The budget was tight but we were going to have the time of our lives.
After spending a day in Brussels, we headed to Paris. From there, we took a night train south to Avignon. We went into a private compartment and shut the door. Exhausted after a day trudging around Paris and a sleepless night on a noisy campsite, we fell asleep.
When we woke up, the pouches we wore around our necks, which contained our Inter-Rail tickets, passports and money, had been stolen. We ran up and down the train but, of course, the thieves were long gone. The reality of the situation sunk in as we arrived in Avignon at dawn. Inter-Rail tickets are not replaceable. Our ‘grand tour’ was over before it had begun.
After struggling to overcome the language barrier, we reported the incident to some gendarmes and headed back to Avignon station. Fortunately, we had travellers’ cheques from Thomas Cook, who told us what we needed to do: we had to get to Marseille, where the British Consulate would give us a document that would allow us to travel home.
We hitch-hiked to Marseille, arriving late in the evening, the strong hot winds of the mistral swirling around us. We spent the night lying on the floor of the train station, drinking water from the taps in the public toilets, with no food… (I hope you have your violins out.) At one point, a shifty man approached and asked us if we would like him to buy us a hot meal. We refused and hid.
The next day, we got our documents from the Consulate and replaced our travellers’ cheques. We couldn’t leave France, except to go home, so decided to make the best of the situation. We hitch-hiked home, Marseille to Calais, 663 miles. It took two weeks. And apart from the nights spent lying beside the highway, the rides with men who fortunately didn’t turn out to be serial killers, and an unfortunate incident with a packet of laxatives on a campsite near Dijon, we had a pretty good time.
When we got home, the English papers were full of stories about French bandits gassing tourists on night trains, sending them to sleep so they could steal the passengers’ possessions at their leisure. Though this may have been typical British paranoia about the French.
Years later, when my publisher asked me jokily if I had any other disasters from my past, I immediately thought about that night on a train out of Paris. And an image came into my head: a couple on a night train, falling asleep and waking up to realise that something awful has happened – but with no idea that the worst, the absolute worst, is yet to come…
How My Trip From Hell Inspired Follow You Home
Like my previous novels, The Magpies and Because She Loves Me, Follow You Home was inspired by something that happened to me when I was younger, an experience that I took and turned into something much scarier in order to entertain my readers.
When I was nineteen, my then-girlfriend and I scraped together our pennies so we could go Inter-Railing around Europe. We spent months planning our itinerary, intending to head on a whistle-stop tour of the continent that would last the entire summer. The budget was tight but we were going to have the time of our lives.
After spending a day in Brussels, we headed to Paris. From there, we took a night train south to Avignon. We went into a private compartment and shut the door. Exhausted after a day trudging around Paris and a sleepless night on a noisy campsite, we fell asleep.
When we woke up, the pouches we wore around our necks, which contained our Inter-Rail tickets, passports and money, had been stolen. We ran up and down the train but, of course, the thieves were long gone. The reality of the situation sunk in as we arrived in Avignon at dawn. Inter-Rail tickets are not replaceable. Our ‘grand tour’ was over before it had begun.
After struggling to overcome the language barrier, we reported the incident to some gendarmes and headed back to Avignon station. Fortunately, we had travellers’ cheques from Thomas Cook, who told us what we needed to do: we had to get to Marseille, where the British Consulate would give us a document that would allow us to travel home.
We hitch-hiked to Marseille, arriving late in the evening, the strong hot winds of the mistral swirling around us. We spent the night lying on the floor of the train station, drinking water from the taps in the public toilets, with no food… (I hope you have your violins out.) At one point, a shifty man approached and asked us if we would like him to buy us a hot meal. We refused and hid.
The next day, we got our documents from the Consulate and replaced our travellers’ cheques. We couldn’t leave France, except to go home, so decided to make the best of the situation. We hitch-hiked home, Marseille to Calais, 663 miles. It took two weeks. And apart from the nights spent lying beside the highway, the rides with men who fortunately didn’t turn out to be serial killers, and an unfortunate incident with a packet of laxatives on a campsite near Dijon, we had a pretty good time.
When we got home, the English papers were full of stories about French bandits gassing tourists on night trains, sending them to sleep so they could steal the passengers’ possessions at their leisure. Though this may have been typical British paranoia about the French.
Years later, when my publisher asked me jokily if I had any other disasters from my past, I immediately thought about that night on a train out of Paris. And an image came into my head: a couple on a night train, falling asleep and waking up to realise that something awful has happened – but with no idea that the worst, the absolute worst, is yet to come…
June 2, 2015
Win a signed paperback of Follow You Home
Mark’s fourth solo psychological thriller, Follow You Home, is published worldwide on June 30th.
You can help spread the word about this terrifying new novel, in which a young couple’s dream trip around Europe turns into a nightmare, by supporting the Thunderclap campaign.
All you need to do is follow the link below and click either ‘support with Facebook’ or ‘support with Twitter’. Then, on June 30th, a message announcing the launch will be automatically posted on your social network. Everyone who gives their support will be entered into a draw to win one of two great prizes: a signed paperback of Follow You Home or your name in Mark’s next book.
Win a signed paperback of Follow You Home
Mark’s fourth solo psychological thriller, Follow You Home, is published worldwide on June 30th.
You can help spread the word about this terrifying new novel, in which a young couple’s dream trip around Europe turns into a nightmare, by supporting the Thunderclap campaign.
All you need to do is follow the link below and click either ‘support with Facebook’ or ‘support with Twitter’. Then, on June 30th, a message announcing the launch will be automatically posted on your social network. Everyone who gives their support will be entered into a draw to win one of two great prizes: a signed paperback of Follow You Home or your name in Mark’s next book.
May 24, 2015
My Top Ten Mystery and Thriller Novels
I read a lot of novels, about two a week, and although I dip into other genres my favourite genre is the one I write in. I’ve read so many great thrillers and suspense novels over the last twenty years that choosing ten that I rank above the others was no easy task. I’m sure a few of my favourites have temporarily slipped my mind. But here are ten that made a big impact on me and that I heartily recommend to everyone who loves books that take us to the darker side of the street.
1. THE SECRET HISTORY, Donna Tartt – “I hope we’re all ready to leave the phenomenal world, and enter into the sublime?” The Secret History is a literary thriller that tells the story of a group of Greek students at a New England college who set themselves apart from their fellows and are arrogant, snobbish and beautiful. Led by the strangely charismatic Henry, and enthralled by their elitist tutor Julian, the group commit a terrible crime and go on to plot the murder of one of their own, Bunny, because he threatens to expose them. The first half of the book leads towards this momentous event; the second half reveals the consequences – the guilt, the anguish and the fear of being caught. This perhaps makes it sound serious and gloomy, but it really isn’t. The book is fast-moving, drenched in atmosphere and contains some moments of pure comedy.
The Secret History is not merely my favourite mystery novel – I put it above my favourite album, movie, song, above everything. I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m slightly obsessed with it. One of the highlights of my life so far was watching Donna Tartt talk about and read from it in London in 2014. Afterwards, she shook my hand. It was like a Rolling Stones fanatic meeting Mick Jagger. I loved The Goldfinch too, but I know that no matter how many books I read none will ever top The Secret History.
The rest of the books on this list are in no particular order.
2. THE TREATMENT, Mo Hayder – The second book in Hayder’s Jack Caffrey series, The Treatment is also the darkest. It’s the most terrifying, disturbing novel I’ve ever read. A family in south-east London are put through an unspeakable ordeal. Meanwhile, Detective Caffrey is trying to find out what happened to his brother who vanished years ago. This book is so dark that reading it is akin to having icy fingers scrape at your soul…and the experience was intensified for me by the fact that I lived in the area where it’s set. I saw the building in which the killer lived on my walk to work each morning. My children played in the park where a murder victim is found hanging from a tree. Since The Treatment, Mo Hayder has eased off a little on the horror, but the whole series is great, especially the latest entries, Poppet and Wolf (which works as a companion to The Treatment and resolves one of the mysteries left over from that book).
3. INTO THE DARKEST CORNER, Elizabeth Haynes – There have been loads of excellent psychological thrillers published over the last few years but Into the Darkest Corner remains my favourite. A woman with OCD is hiding out, recovering from a terrifying experience, unsure if she is safe…and, of course, she’s not. Haynes nails the psychological thriller here: a damaged, loveable heroine, a truly loathsome villain, her attempts to escape his clutches and rebuild her life. It’s jaw-droopingly good – scary, sexy and impossible to put down. Her subsequent novels have been excellent too but for me this is still her best.
4. RED DRAGON, Thomas Harris – It’s almost obligatory to include a Thomas Harris book in any list of top crime novels and this, the original serial killer thriller, is still hard to beat. Hannibal Lecter remains, with the possible exception of Lisbeth Salander, the greatest character in the genre, and many novelists are still making a living rewriting this book: the twisted killer with a warped back-story, the flawed but brilliant FBI profiler, the game of cat and mouse between the pair. It doesn’t matter if Harris never writes another book, his first two Hannibal books outshine the entire backlists of most writers.
5. THE CONCRETE BLONDE, Michael Connelly – The Harry Bosch series was the first cop series I got into. It’s been consistently brilliant for twenty years and this is my favourite, the novel in which all of the elements come together in perfect, pulse-pounding fusion. I still remember the sensation of reading it, back in the nineties, being completely unable to put it down, desperate to find out what happened next. Connelly writes such hard, clean prose and is a master when it comes to plotting. Bosch is a wonderful creation and the recent TV series was pretty excellent too.
6. THE BLACK DAHLIA, James Ellroy – I read this around the same time that I read The Concrete Blonde and was utterly blown away. It takes about forty pages to really get going but as soon as Elizabeth Short’s tortured, multilated body is found the novel takes off like a rocket, propelled by Elroy’s savage wit and the raw emotion that comes from the connection, in Elroy’s imagination, between the murders of the Black Dahlia and his own mother. The second book in the L.A. Quarter, The Big Nowhere, is even nastier and it’s difficult to choose between the two. L.A. Confidential is another masterpiece. After that, Ellroy’s sentences got shorter and the books got longer and longer, and he never quite recaptured the storytelling genius that made The Black Dahlia such a great read.
7. THE CRY, Helen Fitzgerald – And now for something completely different. Arguably it’s not really a mystery novel but The Cry features an event more terrible than any brutal murder or gangland slaying. A couple flying from the UK to Australia accidentally give their baby an overdose and, gripped by panic and horror, try to cover up what they’ve done. It sounds like a grim topic, and a lesser writer might have turned such a premise into a depressing read. But The Cry manages to be darkly funny about a completely unhumorous topic, and Fitzgerald produces a novel that is compelling, life-affirming and impossible to put down.
8. THE FOLLOWER, Jason Starr – Starr is a New York based writer who should be far more famous as all of his books are brilliant. His speciality is in creating an ordinary protagonist, usually one with a job he or she hates, stuck in a crappy relationship, who makes a terrible mistake and is then sent into a downward spiral of panic and disaster. Starr delights in making his messed-up characters suffer. The Follower was the first of his that I read, and is about a stalker and his victim, told from both their points of view. It’s creepy and very funny. All of his books are brilliant and if the TV adaptation of The Follower happens (Bret Easton Ellis, another of my favourite writers, is involved) it will hopefully catapult Starr into the big league.
9. GONE BABY GONE, Dennis Lehane – I’ve chosen this not just because Lehane is one of the greatest crime writers in the world, who crafts prose that would put many literary novelists to shame, but because it has what I think is the best ending of any novel I’ve read. Warning – SPOILERS AHEAD. (Skip to book 10 if you haven’t read Gone Baby Gone or seen the pretty-decent movie.) After a truly ghastly scene in which Kenzie and Gennaro discover the body of a child, but not the one they were looking for, they discover that little Amanda has been taken away from her deadbeat, junkie mother to be given a better life with a nice, affluent couple. Kenzie has to decide – give Amanda back to her mother or keep the nicer couple’s secret? The reader is willing him to do the latter…but Kenzie’s decision might make you want to throw the book across the room. There’s a follow-up too, Moonlight Mile, which was disappointing though still worth reading. But Gone Baby Gone is a stunning writer at the top of his game.
10. ROSEMARY’S BABY, Ira Levin – Imagine what it must be like to have written four perfect novels, two of which were made into movies that will remain in the public imagination forever: A Kiss Before Dying (noir with an unreliable narrator decades before Gone Girl), The Boys From Brazil, The Stepford Wives and, best of all, Rosemary’s Baby. My book, The Magpies, has been compared to Rosemary’s Baby, but I didn’t read the book or watch the movie until after mine was published. At which point I rushed out to read everything else Levin had written. Everyone knows the premise of Rosemary’s Baby. A young couple move into a creepy old New York apartment block. Rosemary is pregnant. The people next door are…weird and Rosemary’s husband is willing to do anything to help his acting career. It’s acerbic and tense and contains one of the greatest lines ever written: “He has his father’s eyes.” Apparently there’s a sequel in which it’s all revealed to be a dream but I choose to ignore that. Why mess with perfection?
My Top Ten Mystery and Thriller Novels
I read a lot of novels, about two a week, and although I dip into other genres my favourite genre is the one I write in. I’ve read so many great thrillers and suspense novels over the last twenty years that choosing ten that I rank above the others was no easy task. I’m sure a few of my favourites have temporarily slipped my mind. But here are ten that made a big impact on me and that I heartily recommend to everyone who loves books that take us to the darker side of the street.
1. THE SECRET HISTORY, Donna Tartt – “I hope we’re all ready to leave the phenomenal world, and enter into the sublime?” The Secret History is a literary thriller that tells the story of a group of Greek students at a New England college who set themselves apart from their fellows and are arrogant, snobbish and beautiful. Led by the strangely charismatic Henry, and enthralled by their elitist tutor Julian, the group commit a terrible crime and go on to plot the murder of one of their own, Bunny, because he threatens to expose them. The first half of the book leads towards this momentous event; the second half reveals the consequences – the guilt, the anguish and the fear of being caught. This perhaps makes it sound serious and gloomy, but it really isn’t. The book is fast-moving, drenched in atmosphere and contains some moments of pure comedy.
The Secret History is not merely my favourite mystery novel – I put it above my favourite album, movie, song, above everything. I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m slightly obsessed with it. One of the highlights of my life so far was watching Donna Tartt talk about and read from it in London in 2014. Afterwards, she shook my hand. It was like a Rolling Stones fanatic meeting Mick Jagger. I loved The Goldfinch too, but I know that no matter how many books I read none will ever top The Secret History.
The rest of the books on this list are in no particular order.
2. THE TREATMENT, Mo Hayder – The second book in Hayder’s Jack Caffrey series, The Treatment is also the darkest. It’s the most terrifying, disturbing novel I’ve ever read. A family in south-east London are put through an unspeakable ordeal. Meanwhile, Detective Caffrey is trying to find out what happened to his brother who vanished years ago. This book is so dark that reading it is akin to having icy fingers scrape at your soul…and the experience was intensified for me by the fact that I lived in the area where it’s set. I saw the building in which the killer lived on my walk to work each morning. My children played in the park where a murder victim is found hanging from a tree. Since The Treatment, Mo Hayder has eased off a little on the horror, but the whole series is great, especially the latest entries, Poppet and Wolf (which works as a companion to The Treatment and resolves one of the mysteries left over from that book).
3. INTO THE DARKEST CORNER, Elizabeth Haynes – There have been loads of excellent psychological thrillers published over the last few years but Into the Darkest Corner remains my favourite. A woman with OCD is hiding out, recovering from a terrifying experience, unsure if she is safe…and, of course, she’s not. Haynes nails the psychological thriller here: a damaged, loveable heroine, a truly loathsome villain, her attempts to escape his clutches and rebuild her life. It’s jaw-droopingly good – scary, sexy and impossible to put down. Her subsequent novels have been excellent too but for me this is still her best.
4. RED DRAGON, Thomas Harris – It’s almost obligatory to include a Thomas Harris book in any list of top crime novels and this, the original serial killer thriller, is still hard to beat. Hannibal Lecter remains, with the possible exception of Lisbeth Salander, the greatest character in the genre, and many novelists are still making a living rewriting this book: the twisted killer with a warped back-story, the flawed but brilliant FBI profiler, the game of cat and mouse between the pair. It doesn’t matter if Harris never writes another book, his first two Hannibal books outshine the entire backlists of most writers.
5. THE CONCRETE BLONDE, Michael Connelly – The Harry Bosch series was the first cop series I got into. It’s been consistently brilliant for twenty years and this is my favourite, the novel in which all of the elements come together in perfect, pulse-pounding fusion. I still remember the sensation of reading it, back in the nineties, being completely unable to put it down, desperate to find out what happened next. Connelly writes such hard, clean prose and is a master when it comes to plotting. Bosch is a wonderful creation and the recent TV series was pretty excellent too.
6. THE BLACK DAHLIA, James Ellroy – I read this around the same time that I read The Concrete Blonde and was utterly blown away. It takes about forty pages to really get going but as soon as Elizabeth Short’s tortured, multilated body is found the novel takes off like a rocket, propelled by Elroy’s savage wit and the raw emotion that comes from the connection, in Elroy’s imagination, between the murders of the Black Dahlia and his own mother. The second book in the L.A. Quarter, The Big Nowhere, is even nastier and it’s difficult to choose between the two. L.A. Confidential is another masterpiece. After that, Ellroy’s sentences got shorter and the books got longer and longer, and he never quite recaptured the storytelling genius that made The Black Dahlia such a great read.
7. THE CRY, Helen Fitzgerald – And now for something completely different. Arguably it’s not really a mystery novel but The Cry features an event more terrible than any brutal murder or gangland slaying. A couple flying from the UK to Australia accidentally give their baby an overdose and, gripped by panic and horror, try to cover up what they’ve done. It sounds like a grim topic, and a lesser writer might have turned such a premise into a depressing read. But The Cry manages to be darkly funny about a completely unhumorous topic, and Fitzgerald produces a novel that is compelling, life-affirming and impossible to put down.
8. THE FOLLOWER, Jason Starr – Starr is a New York based writer who should be far more famous as all of his books are brilliant. His speciality is in creating an ordinary protagonist, usually one with a job he or she hates, stuck in a crappy relationship, who makes a terrible mistake and is then sent into a downward spiral of panic and disaster. Starr delights in making his messed-up characters suffer. The Follower was the first of his that I read, and is about a stalker and his victim, told from both their points of view. It’s creepy and very funny. All of his books are brilliant and if the TV adaptation of The Follower happens (Bret Easton Ellis, another of my favourite writers, is involved) it will hopefully catapult Starr into the big league.
9. GONE BABY GONE, Dennis Lehane – I’ve chosen this not just because Lehane is one of the greatest crime writers in the world, who crafts prose that would put many literary novelists to shame, but because it has what I think is the best ending of any novel I’ve read. Warning – SPOILERS AHEAD. (Skip to book 10 if you haven’t read Gone Baby Gone or seen the pretty-decent movie.) After a truly ghastly scene in which Kenzie and Gennaro discover the body of a child, but not the one they were looking for, they discover that little Amanda has been taken away from her deadbeat, junkie mother to be given a better life with a nice, affluent couple. Kenzie has to decide – give Amanda back to her mother or keep the nicer couple’s secret? The reader is willing him to do the latter…but Kenzie’s decision might make you want to throw the book across the room. There’s a follow-up too, Moonlight Mile, which was disappointing though still worth reading. But Gone Baby Gone is a stunning writer at the top of his game.
10. ROSEMARY’S BABY, Ira Levin – Imagine what it must be like to have written four perfect novels, two of which were made into movies that will remain in the public imagination forever: A Kiss Before Dying (noir with an unreliable narrator decades before Gone Girl), The Boys From Brazil, The Stepford Wives and, best of all, Rosemary’s Baby. My book, The Magpies, has been compared to Rosemary’s Baby, but I didn’t read the book or watch the movie until after mine was published. At which point I rushed out to read everything else Levin had written. Everyone knows the premise of Rosemary’s Baby. A young couple move into a creepy old New York apartment block. Rosemary is pregnant. The people next door are…weird and Rosemary’s husband is willing to do anything to help his acting career. It’s acerbic and tense and contains one of the greatest lines ever written: “He has his father’s eyes.” Apparently there’s a sequel in which it’s all revealed to be a dream but I choose to ignore that. Why mess with perfection?
