HAVOC

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A modern-day Ripley from the celebrated author of A Beautiful Crime: 'Fantastic' (ZADIE SMITH)
Eighty-one-year-old Maggie Burkhardt has left it all behind. After the death of her husband and the tragic loss of her daughter Julia, she fled her native Wisconsin and has spent the last five years ping-ponging between the worlds luxury hotels. Now she has finally come to rest somewhere she can imagine staying forever: the Royal Karnak Hotel in Luxor, Egypt.

Maggie is no sweet old lady. She has a nasty, nosy little habit: she spies on her fellow guests and manipulates situations to 'liberate' them from what she sees as unhappy relationships.

When an enigmatic eight-year-old boy, Otto, and his well-meaning mother arrive at the hotel, Maggie sees two easy targets. But she is more wrong than she could possibly know, and is soon locked in a death-spiral with Otto has she finally met her match in a child one-tenth her age

Crackling with the perceptive acid wit of The White Lotus and haloed by Shirley Jacksons cruel, dark magic, Christopher Bollens new novel is a decadent and ghastly delight.

Reviews

Praise for Christopher Bollen:

A Beautiful Crime

'Fantastic' ZADIE SMITH

'Deliciously diabolical' WASHINGTON POST

The Lost Americans

'A perfectly taut thriller' EMMA CLINE

'Gripping and genuinely moving' NEW YORK TIMES

The Destroyers

'A seductive and richly atmospheric literary thriller with a sleek Patricia Highsmith surface' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

'Equal parts Graham Greene, Patricia Highsmith and F. Scott Fitzgerald' GARTH GREENWELL

Author Bio

Christopher Bollen is the author of the critically acclaimed novels THE LOST AMERICANS, A BEAUTIFUL CRIME, and THE DESTROYERS, among others. He lives in New York.