A Flaw in the Design

Listening to the palpable excitement about this book at the Canongate / Serpent’s Tail showcase last year was just what I needed to get into the mood for a psychological thriller that is being likened by the publisher to We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver, which sits untouched on my TBR from years ago but has just been pushed up the list.

While perhaps I got myself a little too excited for this, it was a really pleasant and moreish read – unfortunately, I have a habit of expecting thrillers to never stop getting more exciting, which is obviously not how it works. It’s got to end eventually!

I am hesitant of the phrase “page turner”, not just because in the literal sense, everything is a page turner unless it’s a Kindle and then perhaps a page clicker, but I think the fact that I read this cover to cover on the plane from London to the US suggests it is rather captivating. Here’s a snippet from my review for Buzz Magazine:

The mysterious death of Gil’s sister and high-flying brother-in-law flips his and his wife’s rather ordinary life on its head as they are charged with his nephew, a troubled 17-year-old called Matthew, whose dangerous behaviour with their daughter seven years prior resulted in family estrangement. Now, they have no choice but to welcome him into their family and hope for the best. But when Matthew signs up for Gil’s creative writing lectures and starts submitting alarming, graphic stories imagining parents’ death, Gil realises things will not be that simple. At what point is a story just a story?

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