A Stylist Best New Fiction of 2021 Selection, this stunning 1950s set debut mystery is a perfect summer read.
‘A remarkably assured debut. A tale of inequality, broken dreams and quiet desperation behind a picture-perfect facade’
Guardian
‘A clever and absorbing debut by Inga Vesper, who bricks Joyce up in her perfect house, then smashes it to pieces with aplomb’
The Times
________
Yesterday, I kissed my husband for the last time . . .
It’s the summer of 1959, and the well-trimmed lawns of Sunnylakes, California, wilt under the sun. At some point during the long, long afternoon, Joyce Haney, wife, mother, vanishes from her home, leaving behind two terrified children and a bloodstain on the kitchen floor.
While the Haney’s neighbours get busy organising search parties, it is Ruby Wright, the family’s ‘help’, who may hold the key to this unsettling mystery. Ruby knows more about the secrets behind Sunnylakes’ starched curtains than anyone, and it isn’t long before the detective in charge of the case wants her help. But what might it cost her to get involved? In these long hot summer afternoons, simmering with lies, mistrust and prejudice, it could only take one spark for this whole ‘perfect’ world to set alight . . .
A beguiling, deeply atmospheric debut novel from the cracked heart of the American Dream, The Long, Long Afternoon is at once a page-turning mystery and an intoxicating vision of the ways in which women everywhere are diminished, silenced and ultimately under-estimated.
Everyone is talking about The Long, Long Afternoon
‘Beguiling and evocative. This
vivid and atmospheric pageturner will keep readers guessing all the way to its satisfying finale’
Sunday Express
‘Beautifully crafted , claustrophobic and
compelling. As delicious as a long drink on a hot day ‘
Stacey Halls,
Sunday Times bestselling author of
The Familiars and
The Foundling
‘Such a
vivid atmosphere of stifling LA heat and stifling 50s domesticity’
Clare Chambers, author of
Small Pleasures
‘
Breathtakingly stylish , hypnotic and masterfully gripping’
Chris Whitaker, author of
We Begin at the End, Waterstones Thriller of the Month
‘A triumph. What a pleasure to read something
fresh and original. For once the hype is justified and Inga
Vesper’s gripping page turner must surely now be bound for Netflix’
Evening Standard
‘A
tasty, tense, page-turning combo of James Ellroy and Kate Atkinson with a bit of
Mad Men thrown in’
Liz Hyder
‘
For fans of Revolutionary Road and Mad Men , this is
an atmospheric tale of repression and style at the heart of the American Dream’
Stylist
Tentang Penulis
Inga Vesper is a journalist and editor. She moved to the UK from Germany to work as a carer, before the urge to write and explore brought her to journalism. As a reporter, she covered the coroner’s court and was able to observe how family, neighbours and police react to a suspicious death. Inga has worked in Syria and Tanzania, but now lives in Glasgow, because there’s no better way to find a good story than eavesdropping on the chatter in a Scottish cafe on a rainy day.
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