The Last Thing to Burn: Longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger and shortlisted for the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year

Description

'I lived every second with the characters. A masterpiece' JANE CASEY 'Misery meets Room ... a triumph' MARIAN KEYES 'Ratchets up the tension to the point where I had to check my pulse' LIZ NUGENT He is her husband. She is his captive. Her husband calls her Jane. That is not her name. She lives in a small farm cottage, surrounded by vast, open fields. Everywhere she looks, there is space. But she is trapped. No one knows how she got to the UK: no one knows she is there. Visitors rarely come to the farm; if they do, she is never seen. Her husband records her every movement during the day. If he doesn't like what he sees, she is punished. For a long time, escape seemed impossible. But now, something has changed. She has a reason to live and a reason to fight. Now, she is watching him, and waiting ... ************************************** Praise for Will Dean's storytelling: 'Loaded with atmosphere, brilliant on setting' Mark Billingham 'The best thriller I've read in ages' Marian Keyes 'Atmospheric, creepy and tense' C.J. Tudor 'Memorably atmospheric' Guardian 'Impressive' The Times 'Crackles along at a roaring pace' Observer

Will Dean grew up in the East Midlands and had lived in nine different villages before the age of eighteen. After studying Law at the LSE and working in London, he settled in rural Sweden where he built a house in a boggy clearing at the centre of a vast elk forest, and it's from this base that he compulsively reads and writes. His debut novel, Dark Pines, was selected for Zoe Ball's Book Club, shortlisted for the Guardian Not the Booker prize and named a Daily Telegraph Book of the Year. Red Snow was published in January 2019 and won Best Independent Voice at the Amazon Publishing Readers' Awards, 2019. Black River was shortlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Award in 2021. The Last Thing to Burn was released to widespread acclaim in January 2021.

This is a brilliant, chilling depiction of life on the very edges of society. I read it in one sitting, and lived every second of the book with the characters. Compelling, horrifying and gripping, and written with such empathy and control, it's probably the best thing I will read this year - Jane Casey Misery meets Room ... a triumph - Marian Keyes Ratchets up the tension to the point where I had to check my pulse - Liz Nugent