Winner of the Crime Novel of the Year at the Bloody Scotland Crime Festival
I should have settled for what I was dealt, as it was generous enough in other people’s estimation. The actions I took in pursuit of my desires, to better my lot and to extricate myself from an intolerable situation, these were unforgivable, depraved.
Did she do it?
Did he deserve it?
Diana Jager is clever, strong and successful, a skilled surgeon and fierce campaigner via her blog about sexism. Yet it takes only hours for her life to crumble when her personal details are released on the internet as revenge for her writing.
Then she meets Peter. He's kind, generous, and knows nothing about her past: the second chance she's been waiting for. Within six months, they are married. Within six more, Peter is dead in a road accident, a nightmare end to their fairytale romance.
But Peter's sister Lucy doesn't believe in fairytales, and tasks maverick reporter Jack Parlabane with discovering the dark truth behind the woman the media is calling Black Widow...
A crime novelist with a flair for psychological thrillers tinged with a wicked pinch of black comedy, Chris (Christopher) Brookmyre made his name with a series of novels featuring detective Jack Parlabane (a character he said he based in part on Douglas Adams’ Ford Prefect). The Jack Parlabane novels in order of publication are: Quite Ugly One Morning, Country of the Blind, Boiling a Frog, Be My Enemy, Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks, Dead Girl Walking, Black Widow and Want You Gone.
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
ISBN: 9780349141329
Number of pages: 512
Weight: 360 g
Dimensions: 196 x 128 x 33 mm
A celtic Gone Girl... guaranteed to keep you guessing Ian Rankin Black Widow is a stand-out thriller, reminiscent of the best of Nordic Noir but with its own vivid landscape Renee Knight, author of Disclaimer Brookmyre opens with a dramatic court scene, followed by a series of clever twists that challenge the reader to work out who is the victim of an extremely sophisticated crime Sunday Times Exceptionally good - a knotty mystery that's not just richly, provocatively political but one of the most perceptive excavations of a dysfunctional marriage I can remember reading... Brookmyre plays a cunning, careful game Guardian I didn't know what was going to happen next in this epic thriller. I urge you to read it, too Sun The story's characters are compelling and the mystery is evoked with scalpel-like precision Daily Mail This is mystery plotting at its highest level, all the disparate strands forming into a web and then into a knot that tightens around victim, detective and reader Spectator It's only as you're racing through the final tense pages, full of betrayal, revenge and shocking revelations, that you realise the brilliance behind the construction of this utterly compulsive, whipsmart thriller Sunday Mirror A gripping, complex and classy crime novel. Mail on Sunday YOU Magazine Chilling, gripping and exquisitely unpredictable Daily Record Black Widow does its best to evade you at every turn, demanding your full attention Scotland on Sunday Chris Brookmyre has some claim to be the leading satirical novelist currently at work in Britain Daily Telegraph Enthralling and entertaining Daily Express A biting satire, nuanced enough to avoid polemic Sunday Telegraph A briskly paced thriller with a sense of confident contemporary relevance The List Chris Brookmyre does an exceptionally good job ... making sense of a narrative in which truth and lies are inextricably entwined. The more I read, the more I was hooked Crime Review Black Widow is a stand-out thriller, reminiscent of the best of Nordic Noir but with its own vivid landscape Renee Knight (author of Disclaimer) Tense, intense and quite, quite brilliant Jenny Colgan Has all the verbal and narrative energy of his best work. A pleasing mix of old and new, its country-hopping plot looks back to Grahame Greene and John Buchan, but the pop and media references are bang up-to-date -- John Dugdale Sunday Times One of Brookmyre's most accomplished books... razor sharp The Big Issue 'Brookmyre writes beautifully and describes an unfamiliar world vividly and credibly... I was hooked' -- Jessica Mann Literary Review
Review by ireadnovels.wordpress.com
Black Widow deals with contemporary gender issues such as sexism on forums, public shaming, revenge porn and trolling. Diana Jager is a successful skilled surgeon. She had kept her...
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This is the first book I have read by Chris Brookmyre and it most certainly will not be my last. It is a first class mystery/thriller and the writing, plotting and characterization are of the highest order.
The story...
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I chose Black Widow based on its strong mystery/thriller premise. I had no idea it was part of a series. Lucky for me, having not read any of the previous books didn't keep me from thoroughly enjoying this one.... More
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