Pearse Furlong and May-Belle Mulholland are two normal eleven year-olds meeting one summer in small town Antrim, Northern Ireland, in the early 1980s. They have little in common except a shared experience of violent, abusive parents. They form an unlikely alliance and as their games and shared fantasies spin out of control their friendship becomes something much darker, with theft, arson, sickening brutality - and eventually murder - all lying ahead. Janice Forsyth, presenter of BBC Radio Scotland's The Culture Studio
A blackly comic tale of two 11-year-old psychopaths who go on a murderous rampage in their small Northern Irish town Pearse Furlong and May-Belle Mulholland are two normal 11-year-olds meeting one summer in small town Antrim, Northern Ireland, in the early 1980s. They have little in common except a shared experience of violent, abusive parents. They form an unlikely alliance, and as their games and shared fantasies spin out of control, their friendship becomes something much darker, with theft, arson, sickening brutality, and eventually murder all lying ahead. A veteran of 20 years of reporting on children who kill, as well as many of the biggest stories during The Troubles in Northern Ireland, award-winning journalist Neil Mackay has created a shocking, pitch black debut novel. Through blackly comic and often visceral prose, he not only demonstrates his deep understanding for his subject but also an extraordinary empathy for children damaged by society’s neglect. In Pearce and May-Belle he has created an unforgettable folie � deux and a coruscating satire on the brutality that many prefer to ignore.
This is Where it Ends, Hate List, and Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock readers will appreciate this heartbreaking novel about living with your worst mistake, from New York Times bestselling author Barry Lyga. Sebastian Cody did something horrible, something no one--not even Sebastian himself--can forgive. At the age of four, he accidentally shot and killed his infant sister with his father's gun. Now, ten years later, Sebastian has lived with the guilt and horror for his entire life. With his best friend away for the summer, Sebastian has only a new friend, Aneesa, to distract him from his darkest thoughts. But even this relationship cannot blunt the pain of his past. Because Sebastian knows exactly how to rectify his childhood crime and sanctify his past. It took a gun to get him into this. Now he needs a gun to get out. Unflinching and honest, Bang is the story of one boy and one moment in time that cannot be reclaimed, as true and as relevant as tomorrow's headlines. "Fans of 13 Reasons Why will find a lot to like in Lyga's latest." -- Entertainment Weekly
Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose meets Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho in this brilliant historical epic. Inspired by an extraordinary true case - the first ever documented account of a serial killer in world history. In the second half of the 16th century, Paulus Melchior, lawyer, academic, and enlightened rationalist, travels with his young assistant Willy Lessinger to the isolated German town of Bideburg where local landowner, Peter Stumpf, is accused of brutally murdering dozens of people. A society still trapped in a medieval mindset, the townsfolk clamour for the killer to be tried as a werewolf. If their demands are met, his blameless wife and children will also be executed in the most barbaric way imaginable as agents of Satan and creatures contaminated by wolf blood. Paulus and Willy must fight superstition, the cruelty of those who fear what they don't understand, and a zealous church determined to retain its grip on the souls of Bideburg in this compelling, utterly unforgettable, shocking tour de force. Praise for The Wolf Trial: 'a great storyteller' Louise Welsh 'First, a warning. This novel isn’t for the squeamish. Then again, neither was 16th century Germany, yet Neil Mackay brings its crimes and cruelties, heresies and horrors to life with all the manifold skills of a natural-born story-teller. A frighteningly impressive achievement. Imagine a land in which Christianity is as bloodthirsty as Isis, and where the punishments hereti face make Bosch’s nightmares look timid. That’s what Neil Mackay has done here, turning back to 16th century Germany and the world’s first recorded trial of a serial killer for an impeccably crafted story that also never stops rooting out answers to the question of evil.' David Robinson, author of In Cold Ink 'The tale is gripping, the violence extreme, and the storycraft utterly superb... The Wolf Trial will be one of the landmark texts of the year, without a shadow of a doubt.' Sogo Magazine
