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by Belinda Bauer
Belinda Bauer is a phenomenal voice in British crime fiction, whose work has garnered rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic.
The Shut Eye is a spine-tingling, edge-of-your-seat thriller about a woman who gets involved with a psychic who may be able to find her missing son.
Five footprints are the only sign that four-year-old Daniel Buck was ever here. And now they are all his mother has left. Every day, Anna Buck guards the little prints in the cement. Polishing them to a shine. Keeping them safe. Spiraling towards insanity.
Anna is desperate for hope, which she's not getting from the police, or her husband James. So when a woman tells her she's found a true psychic, a "shut eye," she grasps at it. Maybe he can tell her what happened to her son. But when she meets the psychic, what she gets is not at all what she suspected.
Matching breathtaking suspense with a keen exploration of skepticism in the face of the unexplainable, The Shut Eye is a riveting read from one of our finest crime writers.
"Starred Review. The solution is fairly clued, but it's Bauer's talent at making the characters' emotional lives (especially Anna's) palpable that makes this a standout." - Publishers Weekly
"While the characters in this story aren't always likable, Bauer skillfully draws their humanity, warts and all, to evoke a sympathetic reaction. Clues keep the reader on the trail, and the hint of the supernatural adds an intriguing layer to the narrative. Fans of Tana French or Ruth Rendell will appreciate." - Library Journal
"The most polished crime writer on the murder beat ... Exhausting, exhilarating and damn scary" - Daily Express (UK)
"An intricate plot, extremely moving in some places - Bauer's ability to get under the skins of her characters is second to none" - The Guardian (UK)
This information about The Shut Eye was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Belinda Bauer is the author of six award-winning novels which have been translated into twenty-one languages. She won the Crime Writers' Association's Gold Dagger Award for Crime Novel of the Year for Blacklands, the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award for Rubbernecker, and the CWA Dagger in the Library Award for outstanding body of work. She lives in Wales.
If you liked The Shut Eye, try these:
by Laura Sims
Published 2024
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by Julie Clark
Published 2023
The Lies I Tell is a twisted domestic thriller that dives deep into the psyches and motivations of two women and their unwavering quest to seek justice for the past and rewrite the future.
by Denise Mina
Published 2020
The captivating, utterly unforgettable new thriller for fans of Killing Eve and The Woman in the Window: A true-crime podcast sets a housewife's present life on a collision course with her secret past.
Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.
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