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My Best Friend

ebook / ISBN-13: 9781780879468

Price: £4.99

ON SALE: 5th December 2013

Genre: Fiction & Related Items / Crime & Mystery

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A quiet Suffolk village, 1944: Fourteen-year-old Gerald Haxton is a lonely boy who regards his still-born twin brother Jack as his only friend. His mother, a famous children’s writer, guards Jack’s memory jealously, claiming him as the model for the boy detective in her series of adventure stories, and Gerald, disturbed and unpopular, has no hope of ever measuring up to him. Playing in the woods near his home, Gerald discovers the body of his elder sister buried in a shallow grave. She has been beaten to death with a wooden stake and her boyfriend, a young G.I., is hanged for the crime.

London 1995: As the country prepares to celebrate the 50th anniversary of VE Day, Gerald, who remains a loner, is nearing retirement. Obsessed by routine, he still talks to his dead brother Jack. Surrounded by nostalgic artefacts at the TV prop-hire company where he works, he is constantly reminded of the past, and, with it, his sister Vera’s death. Hoping to escape his lonely existence, he takes to following Mel, the twelve-year-old daughter of a colleague. A few days later, Mel, who bears a striking resemblance to Vera, disappears…

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Reviews

'What's most impressive about this dark, disturbing book is the considerable skill with which Wilson tells the story through several voices. Her portrayals of flawed and dysfunctional people are skin-crawlingly real' Observer.
Observer
'Meticulously knitting together the many strands of an absorbing plot, Wilson effortlessly moves into the exclusive Rendell, Walters and Fyfield club' Guardian.
Guardian
'All the personalities are sharply drawn and the sense of inevitable doom slowly builds up as the story unfolds. The writing is spare and without a wasted word. This book has real class' Sunday Telegraph.
Sunday Telegraph