Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published in USA
Feb 2007
352 pages
Genre: Thrillers
Publication Information
A riveting, disturbing thriller of religious fanatics, hoax debunkers, and the dark side of belief. Journalist Joe Oakes makes a living exposing supernatural hoaxes, but when he visits a secretive religious community on a remote Scottish island, everything he thought he knew is overturned. On the trial of a strange creature caught briefly on film, so deformed it can hardly be human, Oakes crosses a border of electrical fencing, toxin-filled oil drums, and pigs' skulls to infiltrate the territory of the groups' isolated founder, Malachi Dove. Their confrontation, and its violent aftermath, is so catastrophic that it forces Oakes to question the nature of evil--and whether he might be responsible for the heinous crime about to unfold.
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"Starred Review. Hayder offers both a riveting story and a nuanced, distinctly modern look at secrecy and publicity, belief and skepticism, normal and taboo, (in)sight and blindness." - PW.
"When she's on, she's an adventurous, edgy, literate writer. This book is, alas, far from her best." - Kirkus.
"Hayder skillfully melds an atmosphere of fear and a gripping sense of place." - Booklist.
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Photo: Margaret Lister
Mo Hayder has worked as a filmmaker, Tokyo nightclub hostess, and English language teacher in Asia. She is the author of Birdman;The Treatment; The Devil of Nanking, winner of the Elle Magazine crime fiction prize; Pig Island, shortlisted for the Barry Award for Best British Crime Novel; Ritual,shortlisted both for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger award and for the coveted Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award; Skin; and Gone; as well as the winner of the 2011 Crime Writers' Association Dagger in the Library award for outstanding body of work. She lives in England.
A timely novel that explores the human capacity for resiliency and compassion.
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