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Published Sep 2014
368 pages
Genre: Thrillers
Publication Information
Charlotte Alton is an elegant socialite. But behind the locked doors of her sleek, high-security apartment in London's Docklands, she becomes Karla. Karla's business is information. Specifically, making it disappear. She's the unseen figure who, for a commanding price, will cover a criminal's tracks. A perfectionist, she's only made one slip in her career - several years ago she revealed her face to a man named Simon Johanssen, an ex-special forces sniper turned killer-for-hire.
After a mob hit went horrifically wrong, Johanssen needed to disappear, and Karla helped him. He became a regular client, and then, one day, she stepped out of the shadows for reasons unclear to even herself.
Now, after a long absence, Johanssen has resurfaced with a job, and he needs Karla's help again. The job is to take out an inmate - a woman - inside an experimental prison colony. But there's no record the target ever existed. That's not the only problem: the criminal boss from whom Johanssen has been hiding is incarcerated there. That doesn't stop him. It's Karla's job to get him out alive, and to do that she must uncover the truth. Who is this woman? Who wants her dead? Is the job a trap for Johanssen or for her? But every door she opens is a false one, and she's getting desperate to protect a man - a killer - to whom she's inexplicably drawn.
Written in stylish, sophisticated prose, The Distance is a tense and satisfying debut in which every character, both criminal and law-abiding, wears two faces, and everyone is playing a double game.
"[A] riveting debut... While Johanssen isn't entirely convincing as a professional killer, the attraction between him and Karla, as well as other unexpected connections between damaged characters, add depth to an already satisfying read." - Publishers Weekly
"Most of the characters in this highly layered story are duplicitous, but despite the narrative's complexity, Giltrow keeps it tight and moving. The graphic violence and torture has this thriller bordering on horror, like the work of Chelsea Cain, so be forewarned that it is not for the squeamish." - Booklist
"Fast, hard, and very, very good." - Lee Child, bestselling author of the Jack Reacher thrillers
"It doesn't get more satisfyingly high-concept than Helen Giltrow's The Distance, a hair-raising expedition into a dark world of layered duplicities, captured with stylish prose and a breakneck pace." - Chris Pavone, New York Times bestselling author of The Expats and The Accident
"A truly unusual thriller set in the world of espionage, this is a terrific debut... Original and thought-provoking." - The Daily Mirror (UK)
This information about The Distance 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.
Helen Giltrow is a former bookseller and freelance editor whose writing has been shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger Award and the Daily Telegraph's Novel in a Year Competition in the United Kingdom. She lives in Oxford, England. This is her first novel.
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Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
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