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Sophie Hannah's stunning second psychological thriller. Sometimes love must kill before it can die ...

About the Author

Sophie Hannah is a best-selling, award-winning poet. She regularly performs her poetry to live audiences nationwide and abroad, and recently won first prize in the Daphne Du Maurier Festival Short Story Competition for her psychological suspense story The Octopus Nest. LITTLE FACE was her first psychological crime novel. Sophie lives in West Yorkshire with her husband and two children.

Reviews

'This is a far better-written book than any genre label might suggest. Hannah is a respected poet and uses the fascinating motif of the sundial not only to provide the reader with clues but to underline perceptions of life, time and death. It's also significant that she won a Daphne du Maurier award. Her powerful subjects of obsession with the past, and fear in the present, testify that she has made a transition to the narrative world of that iconic writer.' -- Independent 'The hurting distance in a relationship is apparently like an elastic band around your wrist that's being pulled tighter and tighter. You know it could snap at some point, but it's a question of when. The further it goes, the more painful it is when it breaks, like most relationships seem to in Hurting Distance. This story is thrilling from the first page... This book is not simply a whodunnit. The snappy, witty dialogue and clarity make it a thoroughly entertaining read. I thought I had the whole book pegged after the first chapter, but how wrong I was. Pick it up, but be warned, you won't put it down.' -- Birmingham Post 'Sophie Hannah's LITTLE FACE startled the British thriller market a year ago, and her new book is another superbly creepy foray in the genre. Her plots are brilliant - I couldn't see through this one at all.' -- Guardian 'Another success for this inventive writer.' -- Sunday Telegraph 'Poet and children's writer Sophie Hannah is proving to be equally adept at turning her hand to pscyhological thrillers. In HURTING DISTANCE, Naomi's concern for her married lover's well-being grows when his wife insists he is fine, just away. Naomi uses the story of a rape from her past to get the police to sit up and take notice. What makes this novel work so well is that more than one character has a bit of a screw loose - even the detectives on the case are grappling with some crippling personal issues - and it takes the full ride of the novel to find out who is playing whom.' -- Time Out 'Hannah's second novel is a beautifully written chiller-thriller about the after-effect of rape. It grips from start to finish - a grip which held me against my will because the sustained atmosphere of mild hysteria is hard to take ... I couldn't put it down' -- Literary Review 'The terror created by Hannah will continue to lurk on the edges of your sub-conscious long after you've put this book down' -- News of the World 'I have been devouring poet and novelist Sophie Hannah's psychological thriller LITTLE FACE. I can't remember when I was more intrigued by the premise of a book... I read this book greedily, longing to know why anyone would swap a baby ... The tension ratchets up throughout the book; the scenes of David's increasingly vile psychological torture of Alice are particularly gripping ... A toothsome read; I'm eager to get my hands on the next one' -- Naomi Alderman, The Bookseller 'A superbly creepy, twisty thriller about obsessive love, psychological torture, and the darkest chambers of the human heart.' --

'This is a far better-written book than any genre label might suggest. Hannah is a respected poet and uses the fascinating motif of the sundial not only to provide the reader with clues but to underline perceptions of life, time and death. It's also significant that she won a Daphne du Maurier award. Her powerful subjects of obsession with the past, and fear in the present, testify that she has made a transition to the narrative world of that iconic writer.' -- Independent 'The hurting distance in a relationship is apparently like an elastic band around your wrist that's being pulled tighter and tighter. You know it could snap at some point, but it's a question of when. The further it goes, the more painful it is when it breaks, like most relationships seem to in Hurting Distance. This story is thrilling from the first page... This book is not simply a whodunnit. The snappy, witty dialogue and clarity make it a thoroughly entertaining read. I thought I had the whole book pegged after the first chapter, but how wrong I was. Pick it up, but be warned, you won't put it down.' -- Birmingham Post 'Sophie Hannah's LITTLE FACE startled the British thriller market a year ago, and her new book is another superbly creepy foray in the genre. Her plots are brilliant - I couldn't see through this one at all.' -- Guardian 'Another success for this inventive writer.' -- Sunday Telegraph 'Poet and children's writer Sophie Hannah is proving to be equally adept at turning her hand to pscyhological thrillers. In HURTING DISTANCE, Naomi's concern for her married lover's well-being grows when his wife insists he is fine, just away. Naomi uses the story of a rape from her past to get the police to sit up and take notice. What makes this novel work so well is that more than one character has a bit of a screw loose - even the detectives on the case are grappling with some crippling personal issues - and it takes the full ride of the novel to find out who is playing whom.' -- Time Out 'Hannah's second novel is a beautifully written chiller-thriller about the after-effect of rape. It grips from start to finish - a grip which held me against my will because the sustained atmosphere of mild hysteria is hard to take ... I couldn't put it down' -- Literary Review 'The terror created by Hannah will continue to lurk on the edges of your sub-conscious long after you've put this book down' -- News of the World 'I have been devouring poet and novelist Sophie Hannah's psychological thriller LITTLE FACE. I can't remember when I was more intrigued by the premise of a book... I read this book greedily, longing to know why anyone would swap a baby ... The tension ratchets up throughout the book; the scenes of David's increasingly vile psychological torture of Alice are particularly gripping ... A toothsome read; I'm eager to get my hands on the next one' -- Naomi Alderman, The Bookseller 'A superbly creepy, twisty thriller about obsessive love, psychological torture, and the darkest chambers of the human heart.' --

In Hannah's intense second thriller (after Little Face), Det. Sgt. Charlie Zailer and her sidekick, Det. Constable Simon Waterhouse, pursue a serial rapist who preys on successful single career women and sells tickets to "live" rape parties. Naomi Jenkins, a sundial maker prone to panic attacks, reports her married lover, Robert Haworth, missing after he fails to show up for their weekly tryst. Later, in order to speed up the search, Naomi informs the police that Robert raped her three years earlier. Simon finds Robert at home, near death, after possibly being bludgeoned by his wife. But there's far more going on, and making matters more dodgy, aside from a growing victim list, is the foolish fling Charlie has with the owner of a chalet-style resort in Scotland. Full of clever plot twists, this satisfying shocker about "the victims and the perpetrators of violent crimes" suggests how obsessive love, while not a crime, is certainly within hurting distance. (Oct.) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.