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The Wych Elm

The Sunday Times bestseller

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The Wych Elm

By: Tana French
Narrated by: Paul Nugent
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Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Wych Elm by Tara Elm, read by Paul Nugent.

For me it all goes back to that night, the dark corroded hinge between before and after, the slipped-in sheet of trick glass that tints everything on one side in its own murky colours and leaves everything on the other luminous and untouchable.

One night changes everything for Toby. A brutal attack leaves him traumatised, unsure even of the person he used to be. He seeks refuge at his uncle's rambling home, the Ivy House, filled with cherished memories of wild-strawberry summers and teenage parties with his cousins.

But not long after Toby's arrival, a discovery is made. A skull, tucked neatly inside the old wych elm in the garden.

As detectives begin to close in, Toby is forced to examine everything he thought he knew about his family, his past, and himself.

A spellbinding standalone from a literary writer who turns the crime genre inside out, The Wych Elm asks what we become, and what we're capable of, if we no longer know who we are.

 Classics Crime Fiction Genre Fiction Gothic Horror Literary Fiction Police Procedural Women's Fiction Scary Fiction Mystery Exciting Suspense
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Critic reviews

A truly great writer (Gillian Flynn)
The Wych Elm is her best novel yet (Erin Kelly)
Lyrical, suspenseful, unpredictable
My favourite novel of last year (Sophie Hannah)
Terrific - terrifying, amazing, and the prose is incandescent (Stephen King)
A masterpiece (John Boyne)
The finest crime writer around right now
One of the most compulsive psychological mysteries since Donna Tartt's The Secret History...impossible to put down
The Wych Elm should cement French's place in the first rank of great literary novelists
Her storytelling skills are incredible (Sarra Manning)
All stars
Most relevant
Very different story line from Tana French Dublin Murder Squad.Each of the characters were completely self absorbed but they were all brought to life by the exquisite writing and possibly the best narration I've heard.

Navel Gazing At It's Best

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The way in which the novel gives access to the imaginary world the author has created convinces the reader that ordinary life can slip casually into the gruesome, in turn making that seem normal. The narrator is perfect in the creation of plausible voices.

Extraordinarily absorbing

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Twice the length of a usual audiobook. Some surprises, very well written but could have wrapped up much sooner

Amazing narration, chilling plot, great dialogue

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this is a crime novel, but its real merit is in its portrayal of privilege, and what can happen when life knocks someone off their previously easy course. The story stayed with me for a while afterwards - particularly given how current the theme of privilege, and particularly privilege as it aligns with gender, is today. It gets quite dark - and it kept me guessing and uncertain of my own understanding of reality within the novel

a story about the blindspots of class & privilege

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Excellent storytelling, deeply visceral descriptions, and a believable and compelling narration. Tana French never disappoints! Five stars all round.

Fantastic story and narrator

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