LoveReading Says
Billingham is a master of pulling the proverbial rabbit out of the hat in many of this thrillers. While this book, his latest, is something of a departure for Billingham – it’s not part of a series and the entire novel takes place within a psychiatric facility, a kind of Jane Tennison meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – it still has an ending that will leave you reeling.
You know how the first time you saw The Sixth Sense, you wanted to watch it again almost immediately to see how it could have all been there in front of you, but you missed it? It’s that kind of book.
Selected by Linwood Barclay, Our Autumn 2021 Guest Editor. Click here to read the full Guest Editor Piece.
LoveReading
About Rabbit Hole
Alice Armitage is a police officer. Or she was. Following a debilitating bout of PTSD, self-medication with drink and drugs, and a psychotic breakdown, Alice is now a long-term patient in an acute psychiatric ward. Though convinced that she doesn't really belong there, she finds companionship with the other patients in the ward despite their challenging and often intimidating issues. So when one of her fellow patients is murdered, Alice feels personally compelled to launch an investigation from within the ward. Soon, she becomes convinced that she has identified the killer and that she can catch them. Ignored by the police, she must gather proof on her own, relying on the few contacts she has on the outside that still take her calls. But Alice's life begins to unravel as she realizes that she cannot trust anyone in the ward, least of all herself. Having lost her conviction and with her investigative confidence shattered, she comes dangerously close to a psychological point of no return. Mark Billingham has crafted a mind-bending, heart-stopping and wholly original thriller.
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Rabbit Hole Synopsis
Alice Armitage is a police officer.
Or she was.
Following a debilitating bout of PTSD, self-medication with drink and drugs, and a psychotic breakdown, Alice is now a long-term patient in an acute psychiatric ward. Though convinced that she doesn't really belong there, she finds companionship with the other patients in the ward despite their challenging and often intimidating issues.
So when one of her fellow patients is murdered, Alice feels personally compelled to launch an investigation from within the ward. Soon, she becomes convinced that
she has identified the killer and that she can catch them. Ignored by the police, she must gather proof on her own, relying on the few contacts she has on the outside that still
take her calls. But Alice's life begins to unravel as she realizes that she cannot trust anyone in the ward, least of all herself. Having lost her conviction and with her investigative confidence shattered, she comes dangerously close to a psychological point
of no return.
Mark Billingham has crafted a mind-bending, heart-stopping and wholly original thriller.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9780802158703 |
| Publication date: |
16th September 2021 |
| Author: |
Mark Billingham |
| Publisher: |
Atlantic Monthly Press an imprint of Grove Atlantic |
| Format: |
Hardback |
| Pagination: |
390 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Crime and Mystery
|
| Other Genres: |
|
| Recommendations: |
|
Mark Billingham Press Reviews
A gripping, twisting murder mystery and a blackly comic indictment of the way we treat psychological illness today. At the very least it should reach the shortlist of this year's Booker prize. - The Times
Follow Alice - plucky, resourceful, lovable and infuriating - down the Rabbit Hole in Billingham's fast-paced and twisting thriller - Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train
Rabbit Hole is the most cunning, complex, claustrophobic mystery with delicious echoes of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I tore through it, terrified I'd never get out - Louise Candlish, author of Our House
Rabbit Hole is authentic, raucous and deeply compassionate. Expertly balancing humour, tension and pathos, it'll do for the psychiatric ward what The Thursday Murder Club has done for retirement villages. A deeply compelling read - Harriet Tyce, author of Blood Orange
A gripping murder mystery with a streak of black humour - Sunday Times (Books of the Year 2021)
I was totally drawn into Rabbit Hole by Alice, the novel's wildly unreliable narrator. Hilarious, menacing yet vulnerable, she's a brilliant creation, alive on the page. Billingham creates the dark, claustrophobic world of the psychiatric ward with both immense skill and heart - Eve Chase, author of The Glass House
Brilliant, suspenseful, poignant, heartbreaking, surprisingly funny, and Mark Billingham, magician that he is, pulls that proverbial rabbit out of the hat at the end. More than just about any other book I've read, I HAD to know how it would all come together - Linwood Barclay
Billingham's picture of the ward and its staff is full of humanity, leaving us with a clear sense that this kind of illness could affect any of us, and the story offers an excellent twist. He gets better and better. - Literary Review
When the solution comes it's perfectly satisfying. My guess, though, is that what most readers will remember more intensely is . . . Alice's voice: by turns funny, broken, chatty, defiant, bewildered-but always utterly convincing and compelling. - Readers Digest
About Mark Billingham
Mark Billingham has been awarded the 2003 Sherlock Award as the creator of the Best Detective created by a British writer and has twice won the Theakston's Old Peculier prize for best novel of the year.
Each of the novels featuring Detective Inspector Tom Thorne has been a Sunday Times bestseller. Sleepyhead and Scaredy Cat were made into a hit TV series on Sky 1 starring David Morrissey as Thorne, and a series based on the novels In the Dark and Time of Death was broadcast on BBC1.
Mark lives in north London with his wife and two children.
Photograph © Charlie Hopkinson
Maxim Jakubowski's view on DI TOM THORNE...
A dogged London cop whose beat somehow invariably crosses into the dark side and confronts evil at its cleverest.DEATH MESSAGE is the 7th in the series, and BLOOD LINE appears in August 2009.
More About Mark Billingham
