Scrap

(Paperback)

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Description

'Blackly humorous and enjoyably twisted' Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train

'A knotted mystery too intriguing to leave unpicked' Alice Slater, author of Death of a Bookseller

Recently dumped and stuck with the mortgage, artist Esther Ray wants to burn the world, but instead, she reluctantly accepts a scrapbooking job from the deliriously wealthy Naomi Duncan. The scrapbooks, a secret birthday gift for Naomi's husband Bryce, trace the Duncan's twenty-five-year marriage. The conditions: Esther must include every piece of paper she's been sent, must sign an NDA, and must only contact Naomi using the burner phone provided. Otherwise she'll spoil the surprise.

As Esther binges true-crime podcasts and works through the near-two hundred-boxes of Duncan detritus, she finds herself infatuated with the gilded family - until, mid-project, Naomi dies suspiciously. When Esther becomes convinced the husband killed her, she uses the scrapbooks' trove of information to insert herself into the Duncan's' lives to prove it. But the more Esther investigates, the further she is dragged back to the scorched earth of her past and the famous artist who paid her to disappear.

Laced with pitch-black humour and conspiratorial unease, Scrap is a razor-sharp examination of wealth and power, art and truth, of the line between justice and revenge - and who gets to cross it.

Reviews

Scrap offers a bricolage of arson, true crime, mystery and murder that takes its readers from the cosy humility of scrapbooking to the lofty heights of champagne dinners, exclusive gallery openings and private jets. At its wicked heart - a knotted mystery too intriguing to leave unpicked. -- Alice Slater, author of Death of a Bookseller
Art, true crime and extreme wealth collide in this blackly humorous and enjoyably twisted mystery -- Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train

Author Bio

Calla Henkel is an American writer, playwright, director and artist living in Berlin. She has staged plays at Volksbuhne Berlin, The Whitney Museum of Art, as well as at New Theater, the experimental theatre space she founded and programmed in Berlin from 2013-2015. Her art writing has been published in periodicals such as Texte zur Kunst, Spike, Mousse, and others. Her artistic work with Max Pitegoff has been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide. She currently operates a bar, performance space and film studio called TV in Berlin. Her debut novel, Other People's Clothes was published in 2021.