This Little Dark Place

Review [A] compelling psychological thriller- a terrifyingly plausible story of how everyday failures of empathy, compassion and, most of all, trust, can have fatal consequences. ― The Sunday Times Published On: 2019-09-26 [an] elegantly creepy skin-crawler ― The Guardian Published On: 2019-10-18 Hatch's promising debut is a short, sharp shocker that keeps you guessing to the end ― The Times An intense, oppressive debut, with its dark climax sudden and shocking in its plausibility ― Observer An emotionally raw and compulsively readable psychological thriller. A powerful tale of obsessive love and stealthy betrayal, full of twists that jolt you right up to the end. ― Alice Blanchard, award-winning author of The Breathtaker AS Hatch's first-rate debut is a spare, elegantly written chiller in the true Highsmithian register. Daniel, our damaged, diffident carpenter protagonist, having served a long prison sentence, retraces the steps that led him to captivity, charting his unhappy childless relationship and gradual drift into chaos. The plot is as well turned as the cabinets Daniel makes, the narration is unreliably delirious and there's an inspired use of Brexit, first as an unearthly chill across the land in the referendum's immediate aftermath and then as a frenzied, Brueghelian street party in a seaside town, a fittingly grotesque backdrop to the novel's unsettling progress. ― The Irish Times Published On: 2019-10-05 Carries the reader along with a sense of foreboding, with a shocking twist at the end. ― L.F. Robertson, author of Two Lost Boys A breathless page-turner with gathering tension throughout. ― Rebecca Alexander, author of A Baby's Bones Full of palpable unease and tension creeping down every page. I inhaled this book! I could not put it down! ― Prima Published On: 2019-10-05 [A] dark, well-told, twisting psychological tale ― Saga Published On: 2019-11-02 Product Description LONGLISTED FOR THE CWA JOHN CREASY DAGGER AWARD How well do you know your girlfriend? How well do you know your lover? How well do you know yourself? Daniel and Victoria are together. They're trying for a baby. Ruby is in prison, convicted of assault on an abusive partner. But when Daniel joins a pen pal program for prisoners, he and Ruby make contact. At first the messages are polite, neutral - but soon they find themselves revealing more and more about themselves. Their deepest fears, their darkest desires. And then, one day, Ruby comes to find Daniel. And now he must decide who to choose - and who to trust. Book Description A gripping debut psychological thriller: a dark love triangle and an unspeakable act of betrayal About the Author A.S. Hatch grew up in Lancashire in the 90s, and has lived in Taipei and Melbourne. Now he lives in London and writes fiction in his living room-slash-office-slash-gym in the early hours of the morning before going to work in political communications