Nicci French

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BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR


Title: Secret Smile: Description:
You have an affair. You finish it. You think it's over. You're wrong!

Title: Land Of The Living: Description:
Land of the Living is the latest thriller from the husband-and-wife team of journalist Nicci Gerrard and writer Sean French. They have produced (as Nicci French) several first-rate novels of psychological suspense, such as The Red Room, Beneath the Skinand Killing Me Softly. Land of the Living is possibly their most assured outing yet, with all the carefully crafted plotting and assiduous characterisation that has distinguished their earlier work. The basic situation is intense and immediate: Abbie Devereux wakes up and finds herself hooded and bound, with no idea of how she ended up in this terrifying state. She is tended to by a man she never sees: a man who makes the promise that he will eventually kill her "like the others". Abbie is forced to re-examine aspects of her identity, her career and the dying relationship she had with her boyfriend. The struggle for survival is physical and mental. If French's compelling novel owes more than a little to John Fowles' masterpiece The Collector, it is none the worse for that. And the delineation of extreme mental states has all the disturbing assurance of Patricia Highsmith. --Barry Forshaw

Title: Beneath The Skin: Description:
Zoe, a pretty blonde schoolteacher. Jenny, a former hand model turned model wife and mother. Nadia, an irrepressible free spirit who entertains at children's parties. Three women living in different parts of London, grappling with different problems, sheltering different dreams--their lives and narratives linked only by the singular madness of a sadistic stalker. As they move slowly through the sweltering heat of summer, someone is sending these women letters that let each know she is being watched, studied and loved from afar--even unto death. Beneath the Skin is a spooky, highly effective psychological thriller. Initially, the women refuse, as do the police, to take the threats seriously--they are happy, they are inviolable; surely these letters are the work of a harmless crank. But the novel watches Zoe, Nadia and Jenny move from blithely insouciant denial, to frustration, to creeping terror, and finally to the stark realisation that neither they nor anyone else will prevent this killer from destroying them. French skilfully evokes the insidiousness with which the letters invade the women's lives, straining and shattering relationships, pushing each toward fearful insanity. Perhaps the novel's greatest appeal lies in its mordant irony: not only do the stalker's threats push and fester "beneath the skin", but they also draw out the flaws and terrors that are already there. French sketches the women's weaknesses and fears with merciless accuracy, stripping them naked long before the killer arrives to finish what his letters have begun. The author's talent for psychological portraiture is, in fact, so great as to undermine, however slightly, the novel itself. We become so aware of the women, of their responses, of their needs, that the actual murders arrive as an almost superfluous intrusion. We respect the demands of the genre--a thriller needs thrills, after all--but wistfully regret the loss of the victims, even as we guiltily acknowledge our own voyeuristic culpability in their disintegration. --Kelly Flynn --This text refers to the paperback edition of this title.

Title: Secret Smile: Description:
Miranda Cotton thinks she's put boyfriend Brendan out of her life for good. But two weeks later, he's intimately involved with her sister. Soon what began as an embarrassment becomes threatening - then even more terrifying than a girl's worst nightmare. Because this time Brendan will stop at nothing to be part of Miranda's life - even if it means taking it from her...

Title: Beneath The Skin: Description:
Zoe, a pretty blonde schoolteacher. Jenny, a former hand model turned model wife and mother. Nadia, an irrepressible free spirit who entertains at children's parties. Three women living in different parts of London, grappling with different problems, sheltering different dreams--their lives and narratives linked only by the singular madness of a sadistic stalker. As they move slowly through the sweltering heat of summer, someone is sending these women letters that let each know she is being watched, studied and loved from afar--even unto death. Beneath the Skin is a spooky, highly effective psychological thriller. Initially, the women refuse, as do the police, to take the threats seriously--they are happy, they are inviolable; surely these letters are the work of a harmless crank. But the novel watches Zoe, Nadia and Jenny move from blithely insouciant denial, to frustration, to creeping terror, and finally to the stark realisation that neither they nor anyone else will prevent this killer from destroying them. French skilfully evokes the insidiousness with which the letters invade the women's lives, straining and shattering relationships, pushing each toward fearful insanity. Perhaps the novel's greatest appeal lies in its mordant irony: not only do the stalker's threats push and fester "beneath the skin", but they also draw out the flaws and terrors that are already there. French sketches the women's weaknesses and fears with merciless accuracy, stripping them naked long before the killer arrives to finish what his letters have begun. The author's talent for psychological portraiture is, in fact, so great as to undermine, however slightly, the novel itself. We become so aware of the women, of their responses, of their needs, that the actual murders arrive as an almost superfluous intrusion. We respect the demands of the genre--a thriller needs thrills, after all--but wistfully regret the loss of the victims, even as we guiltily acknowledge our own voyeuristic culpability in their disintegration. --Kelly Flynn --This text refers to the paperback edition of this title.

Title: Killing Me Softly: Description:
Alice Loudon is a successful London thirtysomething; she has the friends, the career, the flat and the loving boyfriend. Her life seems destined to follow a comfortable, conventional route until one morning her eyes lock with a beautiful, mesmerising man as she crosses a road. When Alice leaves work he is still there, waiting. Without exchanging names they go back to his Soho flat and have "obliterating sex". Unable to overcome her passionate feelings for him, Alice abandons the life she had established for herself to marry the powerful, taciturn Adam, a celebrated mountaineer but a virtual stranger. As their relationship develops, Alice discovers that Adam's beautiful exterior belies disturbing aggressive tendencies. He is by turns abusive and loving. In an attempt to understand her new husband and her reaction to him, she launches an investigation into his past and, in particular, his past relationships. Sadly for her, the unsettling details she uncovers do not provide the reassurance she needs. Ultimately, Alice jeopardises her own safety to stay with a man she loves to the point of obsession but fears in equal measure. This book is a disturbing novel, describing the descent of a woman who had been totally in control of her own destiny--from being vibrant and strong to cowering behind an armchair as she hears her husband approaching. A roller coaster of a novel, the final heart-pounding finale is nothing short of a white knuckle ride. --Sarah Crawford

Title: Catch Me When I Fall: Description:
Be careful who you trust. It might just be the death of you...Holly Krauss lives life in the fast lane. A successful young businesswoman with a stable home life, she is loved and admired by all who meet her. But that's only one side of Holly. The other sees her take regular walks on the wild side - where she makes evermore reckless mistakes. And when those mistakes start mounting up, the two sides of Holly blur together and her life quickly spirals out of control. She thinks she's being stalked, someone is demanding money from her - threats lurk around every corner and those closest to Holly are running out of patience. But is she alone responsible for what's happening? Are her fears just the paranoia of an illness - or intimations of very real danger? And if she can no longer rely on her own judgement, who can she trust to catch her when she falls?

Title: The Memory Game: Description:
A psychological thriller in which the body of a 16 year-old girl, missing for 25 years is found buried in the garden of a country house. When it is established she had been murdered, her sister-in-law begins her own investigation.

Title: The Red Room: Description:
Kit Quinn is a young woman who inhabits dangerous worlds. Horribly wounded in an attack by a suspect, she must return to the site of her worst fears. Kit's search for the truth draws her into an underworld of the missing and into danger.

Title: The Red Room: Description:
Kit Quinn is a young woman who inhabits dangerous worlds: crime scenes, interrogation scenes, hospitals for the criminally insane. Horribly wounded in an attack by a suspect, she must return to the site of her worst fears. She is asked by the police to advise them on a simple murder inquiry. A young runaway has been found killed by a canal and the chief suspect is the man who wounded Kit. But Kit refuses to accept appearances and her obsessive search for the truth draws her into an underworld of the missing and the unloved which puts her at terrible risk.

Title: Catch Me When I Fall: Description:
Be careful who you trust, it might just be the death of you

Title: The Safe House: Description:
Samantha Laschen, a doctor specialising in post-traumatic stress disorder, has moved to the Essex coast with her small daughter, Elsie, to escape the problems of her London life. Or so she thinks. Fiona Mackenzie barely survived the savage, murderous attack which left her parents dead. Now she is in need of sanctuary and the police see Sam as the ideal person to offer her a safe house. But as Fiona makes her way into the hearts of her hosts, Sam discovers that the risks she has foreseen are nothing to the terrifying danger she actually faces ...

Title: Land Of The Living: Description:
Abbie Devereaux wakes in the dark. She is hooded and bound, with no idea where she is or how she got there. Kept alive by a man she never sees, his only promise is that eventually he will kill her - like the others. But Abbie has spirit and bloody-mindedness on her side. She counts the seconds spent alone and plots her survival. Above all she dreams of returning to normal, careless, everyday life - the land of the living. Grasping at memories, Abbie recalls snatches of her identity, her career, and her disintegrating relationship with her boyfriend. Is there a connection between her real life and the voice in the darkness? And how can she survive in a place where fear becomes madness and the effort to survive seems too much to bear? About the Author Nicci French is also the author of bestselling novels The Memory Game, The Safe House, Killing Me Softly, Beneath the Skin and The Red Room. She lives in Suffolk. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Title: Losing You: Description:
Nina Landry has given up city life for the isolated community of Sandling Island, lying off the bleak east coast of England. At night the wind howls. Sometimes they are cut off by the incoming tide. For Nina though it is home. It is safe. But when Nina's teenage daughter Charlie fails to return from a sleepover on the day they're due to go on holiday, the island becomes a different place altogether - a place of secrets and suspicions where no one - friends, neighbours or the police - believes Nina's instinctive fear that her daughter is in terrible danger. Alone, she undergoes a frantic search for Charlie. And as day turns to night, she begins to doubt not just whether they'll leave the island for their holiday - but whether they will ever leave it again.

Title: Beneath The Skin: Description:
When three women receive an anonymous note informing them they they are to be killed, their lives are understandably turned upsidedown. Amid fears and threats, they find themselves becoming the accused as the police search for what they have done to attract the unrelenting attention of a killer.