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The Player's Curse
The Player's Curse
Oct 17, 2024 7:29 AM

Author:Brian Thompson

The Player's Curse

Bella Wallis – respectable society widow with a secret identity as a writer of sensationalist novels – is now happily engaged to the love of her life, Philip Westland. But Westland’s shadowy job, working for the British government, continually takes him abroad and away from the charismatic, impatient Bella. And then there is the matter of Westland’s sister’s incarceration in a French nunnery, a mystery about which he refuses to say a word.

Bella is convinced that their future together can only be resolved by getting to the bottom of his secret. The resulting quest will take her from the Oval, and a vicious curse laid on champion batsman W.G Grace, to the desolate moors of Yorkshire, on the trail of some decidedly dangerous women and a surprisingly chatty hermit…

Reviews

A glorious heroine

—— John Harvey

Bella Wallis is a joy to follow

—— The Historical Novels Review

Thompson specialises in sharp, elliptical dialogue and brisk little glances into the murk that rises beyond Bella's window

—— Guardian

Brian Thompson writes well and there is a rich vein of humour

—— Daily Mail

Reading Reichs is always an education one way or another. There is plenty of action... but it is the detail that actually makes it gripping

—— Evening Standard

Brennan is a winner, and so is Reichs

—— Daily News

A truly impressive writer

—— We Love This Book

Extraordinary, sometimes very funny, and extremely evocative… Powerfully evocative

—— Peter Hitchens , Mail Online

Wonderfully unique

—— The Times

It’s rare to feel so completely inside someone’s head

—— Psychologies

Elanor Dymott's arresting debut...combines the pleasures of a thriller with an elegiac meditation on the trials of youth

—— The Lady

A dark clever campus novel that draws the reader into a skilfully woven web of half-told stories... Crafted and elegantly written

—— Metro

Dymott’s capacity to conjure striking imagery is exceptional. This is more than a murder mystery. It’s an examination of the subjectivity of accounts of truth. It’s a desperately moving love story about a lonely man who finds salvation in another only to have his idyll destroyed. It's a tale of revenge, served cold and deadly

—— Independent

This is a love story, told in reverse, a haunting tale of youth and lost love, and a poetical thriller.A powerful debut and a distinctive voice

—— Tom Hollander

Elanor Dymott’s gorgeous debut novel is a murder mystery that’s also a brilliant meditation on love and memory and loss. Like the Robert Browning poems her characters read at Oxford, the book is spooky, lovesick, dark, and lush, its narrator circling obsessively back on the death at its heart

—— Maile Meloy

An irresistible blast of an opening which never disappoints in a journey into a complex knot of intense and ultimately destructive relationships from which the murder that is the dark core ofThis excellent debut novel distills

—— Jon Snow

A beautiful, lucid nightmare of a book. A mystery of love and murder that is elegantly written, disturbing, always compelling, and lingers long in the mind

—— Adam Foulds

A literary thriller wrapped up in a whodunit love story, Elanor Dymott's debut makes for compulsive reading. The complexity of the plot put me in mind of The Secret History;
it deserves to reach just as wide an audience

—— John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

Every Contact Leaves a Trace is beautifully paced, from the graphic event at its start through all its shifting possibilities to its strange, logical conclusion. It is a marvelous book

—— Bernard O’Donoghue

Erudite debut

—— Independent

This murder mystery...gripped me with unusual force... This novel sucks you in beautifully, and will not let you go

—— Evening Standard

This is a class act which unveils its secrets as tantalisingly as a courtesan

—— John Koski , Daily Mail Ireland

Wonderfully evocative of Oxford, this is a love story and a mystery that will keep you guessing

—— Good Book Guide

Part love story, part murder mystery… Dymott’s novel is ample proof of the literary flair that lurks within some lawyers

—— Alex Wade , The Times

One of the best books I’ve read this year

—— Edinburgh Evening News
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