The Narrow Bed
What if having a best friend was the most dangerous thing you could do?
A killer that the police are calling ‘Billy Dead Mates’ is murdering pairs of best friends, one by one.
Before they die, each victim is given a small white book…
For months, detectives have failed to catch Billy, or work out what the white books mean. And then a woman, scared by what she’s seen on the news, comes forward.
Stand-up comedian Kim Tribbeck has one of Billy’s peculiar little books. A stranger gave it to her at a gig she did a year ago. Was he Billy, and does he want to kill her? Kim has no friends and trusts no one, so how – and why – could she possibly be Billy Dead Mates’ next target?
This is the next chilling novel from the queen of psychological crime – a literary puzzle set to unlock the dark side of the mind . . .
A killer that the police are calling ‘Billy Dead Mates’ is murdering pairs of best friends, one by one.
Before they die, each victim is given a small white book…
For months, detectives have failed to catch Billy, or work out what the white books mean. And then a woman, scared by what she’s seen on the news, comes forward.
Stand-up comedian Kim Tribbeck has one of Billy’s peculiar little books. A stranger gave it to her at a gig she did a year ago. Was he Billy, and does he want to kill her? Kim has no friends and trusts no one, so how – and why – could she possibly be Billy Dead Mates’ next target?
This is the next chilling novel from the queen of psychological crime – a literary puzzle set to unlock the dark side of the mind . . .
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Reviews
Imaginative, quirky, inventive and bleakly funny . . . The Narrow Bed confirms Hannah's place as the mistress of postmodern crime fiction.
THE NARROW BED introduces us to Sophie Hannah's possibly most entertaining character yet . . . the central plot is eventually explained with Hannah's powers of outrageous cunning at full blast.
The solution to the crimes is one of her most ingenious and also adroitly contributes to a current debate; though to say which would be to spoil the fine Agatha Christie-style denouement.
Sophie Hannah is genuinely Christie's heir. Her crime novels have a deep vein of surrealism; not just in the ingenious plotting but in the seething menace lying behind the everyday. The Narrow Bed . . . is exquisitely horrible. As with previous books, much of the enjoyment here is in the psychological acuity. Although she is praised for the twistiness of her plots, Hannah's real gift is in revealing the contorted and convoluted nature of the human heart.
A madly enjoyable novel that takes great pleasure in deconstructing as many narrative tropes as possible.
Hugely entertaining, full of uncomfortable truths
As an ever-growing legion of crime writers fights for the attention of readers, it's comforting to settle down in the company of someone utterly reliable. Sophie Hannah rarely puts a foot wrong in her complex psychological thrillers, and this latest book bristles with the acutely observed characterisation that is the hallmark of her work.
Hannah's mastery of plot and character are simply peerless.
