The Execution

Matthew Bourne suspects his partner, Marianne, of having an affair — though he has just embarked on one himself. Then one day a colleague's wife dies in tragic circumstances, and Matthew is called to identify the body. Only much later does he realise that this incident has seeped into his life like a slow poison...A riveting narrative of mystery and menace, 'The Execution' is a stunningly accomplished novel. • First book in two-book deal. Wilcken's second, Colony, is set in French Guiana at the end of empire, as the ropes relax and anarchy beckons. An escape by convicts from the penal colony will be at the novel's heart, and the book is bound to invite comparison with Charriere's classic, Papillon. • The Execution has been compared to the work of playwrights Harold Pinter and David Hare. Competition: Known And Strange Things; Misbehaving; For Two Thousand Years (Penguin Modern Classics); Becoming Johnny Vegas; Purity. William Boyd;Ian McEwan; Teju Cole; Richard H Thaler; Mihail Sebastian;