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Published Aug 2012
432 pages
Genre: Thrillers
Publication Information
From the internationally bestselling author of Blood Men and Collecting Cooper comes a riveting new thriller about one father's revenge and another's fight for survival.
Theodore Tate never forgot his first crime scene - ten-year-old Jessica found dead in "the Laughterhouse," an old abandoned slaughterhouse with the S painted over. The killer was found and arrested. Justice was served. Or was it?
Fifteen years later, a new killer arrives in Christchurch, and he has a list of people who were involved in Jessica's murder case, one of whom is the unfortunate Dr. Stanton, a man with three young girls. If Tate is going to help them, he has to find the connection between the killer, the Laughterhouse, and the city's suddenly growing murder rate. And he needs to figure it out fast, because Stanton and his daughters have been kidnapped, and the doctor is being forced to make an impossible decision: which one of his daughters is to die first.
Fast-paced, dark, and intensely clever, this exciting thriller represents a brilliant new chapter in the career of a world-class crime writer.
Paperback original
"Starred Review. Tate's heart-wrenching losses and forlorn hopes, and Cleave's unusually perceptive gaze into the maw of a killer's madness make this a standout chapter in his detective's rocky road to redemption." - Publishers Weekly
"An intense and bloody noir thriller, one often descending into a violent abyss reminiscent of Thomas Harris, creator of Hannibal Lecter." - Kirkus Reviews
"Starred Review. A wonderful book... The final effect is that tingling in the neck hairs that tells us an artist is at work." - Booklist
"This dark, gripping thriller, the latest in the Tate saga, is as hard-boiled as it gets. The surprise ending suspends all disbelief. ...[T]his will leave the reader clamoring for the next book in the series." - Suspense Magazine
This information about The Laughterhouse 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.
Paul Cleave is the internationally bestselling author of ten award-winning crime thrillers, including Joe Victim, which was a finalist for the 2014 Edgar and Barry Awards, Trust No one and Five minutes Alone, which won consecutive Ngaio Marsh awards in 2015 and 2016. He lives in Christchurch, New Zealand.
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