Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published May 2013
400 pages
Genre: Thrillers
Publication Information
Mo Hayder has for years been a master of chilling, seamlessly-plotted thrillers that keep the reader glued to the page long after lights out, and fresh off of winning the Edgar Award for Best Novel for Gone, Hayder is at the top of her game. Her latest novel, Poppet, is Hayder at her most terrifying: a gripping novel about the search for a dangerous mental patient on the loose.
Everything goes according to procedure when a patient, Isaac, is released into the community from a high security mental health ward. But when the staff realize that he was connected to a series of unexplained episodes of self-harm amongst the ward's patients, and furthermore that he was released in error, they call on Detective Jack Caffery to investigate, and to track Isaac down before he can kill again. Will the terrifying little effigies Isaac made explain the incidents around the ward, or provide the clue Caffery needs to predict what he's got planned?
Mo Hayder is renowned for conjuring nightmares that sink under the skin, and in Poppet she has delivered a taut, unbearably suspenseful novel that will not let readers go.
"Starred Review. Hayder's sharply drawn characters, major and minor, and her psychological acumen combine for a frightening and convincing read." - Publishers Weekly
"More jittery than suspenseful, but the complications are authentic and conscientiously worked out. If this installment doesn't win new fans, it'll keep the old ones happy." - Kirkus
This information about Poppet 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.
Photo: Margaret Lister
Clare Dunkel, who wrote under the pen name Mo Hayder, worked as a filmmaker, Tokyo nightclub hostess, and English language teacher in Asia. She is the author of 10 novels including her 1999 debut Birdman. She won many awards including the 2011 Crime Writers' Association Dagger in the Library award for outstanding body of work. She lived in England until her death from motor neuron disease in 2021.
The Book of Sand, the first in a planned new series set in an alternate universe is due to be published in 2022 under the name Theo Clare. Dunkel had taken four years to write the novel, and described herself as "so happy to be writing fiction set in an entirely imaginative universe of my own creation".
The Wren, the Wren
by Anne Enright
An incandescent novel about the inheritance of trauma, wonder, and love across three generations of women.
Digging Stars
by Novuyo Rosa Tshuma
Blending drama and satire, Digging Stars probes the emotional universes of love, friendship, family, and nationhood.
25 Copies to Give Away!
A daring CIA operation threatens chaos in the Kremlin. But can Langley trust the Russian at its center?
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
