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"A taut psychological thriller, loaded with mood, and a puzzle tricky enough to keep you guessing to the final page" -The Washington Post
In the chilling tradition of Daphne du Maurier and with the acuity of Kate Atkinson comes an atmospheric psychological thriller about an isolated British village and the sinister abandoned house that holds the key to its most shameful secrets.
Alison is as close to anonymous as you can get: she has no ties and no home, and her only anchors are her boyfriend and her small backroom job in publishing. Which is exactly how she wants it. Because once, Alison was a teenager named Esme who lived in a remote, dilapidated house by a bleak estuary with her parents and three siblings. One night something terrible happened in the family's crooked house, leaving Alison the only survivor. In order to escape from the horror she witnessed, she moved away from the village, changed her name, and cut herself off from her past.
But now her boyfriend has invited her to a wedding being held in her old hometown, which means returning there for the first time since that night. She decides that she's never going to overcome the trauma of what happened to her without confronting it, so she accepts his invitation. But soon Alison realizes that the events of that night left their awful mark not just on her but on the entire village, and she begins to suspect that everyone there might somehow be implicated in her family's murder.
Christobel Kent's The Crooked House is a haunting thriller about one woman's search for the truth about her past through a closed community full of dark secrets.
In the chilling tradition of Daphne du Maurier and with the acuity of Kate Atkinson comes an atmospheric psychological thriller about an isolated British village and the sinister abandoned house that holds the key to its most shameful secrets.
Alison is as close to anonymous as you can get: she has no ties and no home, and her only anchors are her boyfriend and her small backroom job in publishing. Which is exactly how she wants it. Because once, Alison was a teenager named Esme who lived in a remote, dilapidated house by a bleak estuary with her parents and three siblings. One night something terrible happened in the family's crooked house, leaving Alison the only survivor. In order to escape from the horror she witnessed, she moved away from the village, changed her name, and cut herself off from her past.
But now her boyfriend has invited her to a wedding being held in her old hometown, which means returning there for the first time since that night. She decides that she's never going to overcome the trauma of what happened to her without confronting it, so she accepts his invitation. But soon Alison realizes that the events of that night left their awful mark not just on her but on the entire village, and she begins to suspect that everyone there might somehow be implicated in her family's murder.
Christobel Kent's The Crooked House is a haunting thriller about one woman's search for the truth about her past through a closed community full of dark secrets.
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Reviews
"The Crooked House is a weird, excellent literary thriller, equal parts psychological profile and twisty, nasty plot. Its first two-thirds are subtle, heartbreaking, and grim; the last third descends into the sort of suspenseful page-turner that puts in the physical integrity of the novel's spine at risk. The estuary where the majority of the novel is set is a moody and atmospheric place, and ever
Carmen Maria Machado, NPR
"[Her] pages are stalked . . . by suspicion, treachery and paranoia."
Minneapolis Star Tribune
"A taut psychological thriller, loaded with mood, and a puzzle tricky enough to keep you guessing to the final page . . . Kent's book is a delightful reminder that absorbing and clever crime novels still exist . . . The Crooked House is a well-constructed tale with a clever premise and a strong sense of atmosphere."
Carrie Dunsmore, The Washington Post