Scrap

'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

'Binge-worthy . . . a brilliantly immersive and almost cinematic experience' Jenny Mustard, author of Okay Days

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.©2024 Calla Henkel (P)2024 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Page turner

I could not stop listening to this. Much has been made about the difficult and frequently delusional main character, but I like it when female characters have flaws, instead of being written as wish fulfillment through inhuman competence - and I thought her personality was necessary for the story to progress in the ways that it did. Is it always believable? No but it is expertly paced, with complex characters and a nice mystery at its center.
Also the narrator was great - she brought the text to life without being distracting