Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published 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.
"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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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".
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