Author:Johan Theorin
'An impressive debut novel' The Times
'Fantastic' Guardian
Can you ever come to terms with a missing child? Julia Davidsson has not. Her five-year-old son disappeared twenty years previously on the Swedish island of Oland. No trace of him has ever been found.
Until his shoe arrives in the post. It has been sent to Julia's father, a retired sea-captain still living on the island. Soon he and Julia are piecing together fragments of the past: fragments that point inexorably to a local man called Nils Kant, known to delight in the pain of others. But Nils Kant died during the 1960s. So who is the stranger seen wandering across the fields as darkness falls?
It soon becomes clear that someone wants to stop Julia's search for the truth. And that he's much, much closer than she thinks . . .
Evocative and haunting, with a subtle sense of menace that grows with each page
—— Simon Beckett, author of The Chemistry of DeathAn impressive debut novel...Theorin's excellence in conveying bleak atmosphere is matched by his insight into sensitive family relationships
—— THE TIMESFantastic... Theorin's prose is wonderfully descriptive
—— GUARDIANThere is warmth in Theorin's narrative and the gradual piecing together of the story leads to an unexpected denouement
—— SUNDAY TELEGRAPHSheer storytelling grip such as this is relatively rare. A particular strength is the evocation of locale and atmosphere here; it is masterfully done
—— THE GOOD BOOK GUIDEAction-packed and authentic in every detail, it gives us a hero who's at least as scary as the villains. Andy McNab is the real deal and a rare commodity - a hard guy who knows how to write
—— JOHN CASEWith breathless speed, Unger is off on an action-packed journey of treachery and intrigue-and sex and romance. . . . Deep as well as clever, and Unger plays it out thrillingly
—— Publishers Weekly (starred review)Unger effectively builds suspicions. . . . Cleverly handled suspense
—— Kirkus ReviewsHer engaging narrative wins us over
—— Entertainment WeeklyThis mystery's surprising twists will make your jaw drop
—— CosmopolitanPerfect pitch, characters we can recognize as versions of ourselves, a plot in which a vague sense of suspense almost instantly appears and then grows with the speed of a waterslide... lip-smacking good
—— Chicago TribuneLisa Unger comes on strong... A tightly written thriller... Beautiful Lies maintains a high adrenaline level throughout as Jones draws ever closer to learning the dark secrets of her childhood and to discovering who is behind a scheme that changed her life. The book's characters are fully formed, and the action is depicted with satisfying breathlessness
—— San Francisco ChronicleReacher fans will love it - it's all storming compounds, breaking hearts and not bothering to take names, taking justice into his own hands and to hell with the wos'name... a solid inter-Bond-film substitute
—— Maxim