{"title":"Books by Christopher Bollen","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780008730451","title":"HAVOC","description":"The New York Times' #1 Thriller of 2024                      'Highsmithian… highly readable, twisty and shrewd' HANYA YANAGIHARA (on Instagram), author of A Little Life                                'Atmospheric, diabolical fun' LUCY FOLEY, author of The Midnight Feast                                'Disturbingly enjoyable' EMMA HEALEY, author of Elizabeth is Missing                                'A taut, wicked masterpiece' MONA AWAD, author of Bunny                    Five years ago, 81-year-old Maggie Burkhardt fled her native Wisconsin in suspicious circumstances. She has come to rest somewhere she can imagine staying forever: the Royal Karnak Hotel in Luxor, Egypt.             Maggie is no sweet little old lady. She has a nasty, nosy habit: she spies on her fellow guests and manipulates situations to 'liberate' them from what she sees as unhappy relationships.             Wrongly assuming eight-year-old Otto and his well-meaning mother will be easy targets, she is soon locked in a death-spiral with her young prey. Has she finally met her match in a child one-tenth her age?          Crackling with the perceptive, acid wit of The White Lotus and haloed by Shirley Jackson’s cruel, dark magic, HAVOC is a decadent and ghastly delight.             Readers are saying…          'Absolutely brilliant and insane. I went in knowing very little about the book and I’m glad because it made it even more of a wild ride' ★★★★★          'I loved this book from the first page… The conflict between the old and the young in this cat and mouse tussle is brilliant. It’s a hard to put down novel and has a great twist at the end' ★★★★★          'I had an absolute blast reading this. Otto and Maggie are wild characters and their behavior is shocking!' ????","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":57685833286005,"sku":"9780008730499","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":54911862112629,"sku":"9780008730451","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780008730499.jpg?v=1792599038"},{"product_id":"9781471136207","title":"The Destroyers","description":"'\u003ci\u003eThe Destroyers \u003c\/i\u003eis a \u003cb\u003esmart, sophisticated literary thriller\u003c\/b\u003e; for all its originality, it invokes the shades of Lawrence Durrell and Graham Greene' \u003cb\u003eJay McInerney\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003eBright, Precious Days\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eWhen Charlie and I were young, we played a game called Destroyers . . . We were sharpening our instincts, jettisoning attachments. We were honing strategies for survival ...\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eIan Bledsoe\u003c\/b\u003e is on the run, broke and humiliated, fleeing the emotional and financial fallout of his father's death. His childhood friend \u003cb\u003eCharlie \u003c\/b\u003e– rich, exuberant and basking in life on the Greek island of Patmos – is his last hope.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e At first, Patmos is like a dream – sun-soaked days on Charlie’s yacht and the reappearance of a girlfriend from Ian’s past – and Charlie readily offers the lifeline he desperately needs. But, like Charlie himself, this beautiful island conceals a darkness beneath. When he vanishes leaving behind his murky business affairs, Ian finds himself caught in a terrifying labyrinth of deceits. As boys, the pair played a game called Destroyers – a game, he now realizes, they may never have stopped playing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eExpansive, vivid and suspenseful, in the vein of Donna Tartt's \u003ci\u003eThe Goldfinch\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Destroyers \u003c\/i\u003eis a mesmerizing drama of power and fate, fathers and sons, self-invention and self-deception.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e '\u003cb\u003eEqual parts Graham Greene, Patricia Highsmith and F. Scott Fitzgerald\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Destroyers \u003c\/i\u003eis at once lyrical and suspenseful, thoughtful and riveting' \u003cb\u003eGarth Greenwell\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003eWhat Belongs to You\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ‘\u003ci\u003eThe Destroyers\u003c\/i\u003e manages to be both \u003cb\u003efast-paced\u003c\/b\u003e and \u003cb\u003econtemplative\u003c\/b\u003e, an excellent entertainment and also something more lasting, \u003cb\u003ea \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003ehaunting meditation on friendship\u003c\/b\u003e and desperation’ \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eGuardian, \u003c\/i\u003eBest Holiday Reads of 2017\u003c\/b\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56299970953589,"sku":"9781471136207","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781471136207_21353c89-9f26-436d-9d52-86fbc3f92556.jpg?v=1786020893"},{"product_id":"paris-match","title":"Paris Match","description":"'Dark, sexy, and dangerously addictive' JOSH SILVER'A delight. . . a finely-tuned murder mystery' COLM TÓIBÍNArt. Sex. Murder. Paris. One hot June. Fin Vollmer, a 23-year-old American expat turned sex worker is living on his wits and his beauty. He’s overstayed his visa, and he has no plans to leave. There’s nothing for him back home but the haunting tragedy he fled. But when Fin arrives one early morning to find a freshly divorced client murdered in his palatial apartment, he fears what it might look like. He runs.   Jamie Hayes, an ex-model turned personal assistant at the sharp end of middle age, is in over his head and desperately trying to arrange an exit strategy. He creeps into his employer Damien’s apartment and commits a brutal murder.   And then he realizes there’s one living witness, the beautiful boy who showed up unexpectedly but didn’t call the police. Thus begins a city-spanning game of cat and mouse, from its seedy gay saunas to the glamorous auction houses of the art world – a game where only one of them can make it out of alive.   'Thrilling, deliciously sordid' KATIE KITAMURA'A wily, energetic Parisian-American gay adventure. Read this book!' GUS VAN SANT'A beautiful nightmare from which I did not want to wake up' HERNAN DIAZPraise for Christopher Bollen'‘Patricia Highsmith by way of Alan Hollinghurst’ ALEXANDER CHEE'Deeply atmospheric. . . vivid and gripping' EMMA CLINE'Atmospheric, diabolical fun' LUCY FOLEY'Disturbingly enjoyable' EMMA HEALEY'A taut, wicked masterpiece' MONA AWAD‘A thriller master’ LA Times'Extraordinary' A. J. FINN","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57507631759733,"sku":"9781787306035","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781787306035.jpg?v=1787750133"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-christopher-bollen.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}