The Cradle in the Grave

Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

Praise for Sophie Hannah

“The title really sells it. It's creepy stuff, which Sophie's things often are, quite necessarily.”

—Tana French, author of
In the Woods
and
Faithful Place

 

“A perplexing thriller with intrigue and infanticide . . . It's a given that nothing will be as it seems in the latest psychological thriller from Sophie Hannah, who marries complex plots with crisp, conversational prose.”

—
Marie Claire
(UK)

 

“As Hannah sees it things are rarely clear-cut and it is this moral ambivalence that makes her fiction so provocative.”

—
Daily Express
(UK)

 

“She writes beautifully, the narrative races along with the reader breathlessly trying to catch up and the subject matter is fascinating. This is her fifth psychological suspense thriller and, like the others, it's destined for bestsellerdom.”

—Carla McKay,
Daily Mail
(UK)

 

“Hannah takes domestic scenarios, adds disquieting touches, and turns up the suspense until you're checking under the bed for murders.... It's this real-life research that helps make it so convincing—and so unsettling.”

—
The Independent

 

“Hannah is a master of intense psychological thrillers . . . Full of twists and turns, and terrifying, too.”

—
Heat

 

“Sophie Hannah has quickly established herself as a doyenne of the ‘home horror' school of psychological tension, taking domestic situations and wringing from them dark, gothic thrills.... Combining probability theory, poetry, and murder, this is a densely plotted suspenser with a coded puzzle that would grace a Golden Age mystery.”

—
Financial Times
(UK)

 

“Sophie Hannah has been rightly praised for intricate and accomplished psychological thrillers which dissect the dark side of human relationships, and her fifth novel . . . covers obsession, manipulation, meltdown, and all points in between.”

—
The Guardian
(London)

 

“Enthrallingly complex . . . A multistranded narrative that grips.”

—
The Sunday Times
(London)

 

“Intriguing, unnerving, and engrossing . . . Hannah has timing down to an art. What she has created in
Cradle in the Grave
is more than a murder mystery. It is the most adept of psychological thrillers, in which—as with Hannah's other novels—the psychosis lying just below the surface of the human personality is exposed.... A remarkable novel, and an adventure to read . . . Undoubtedly a first-class whodunit that will keep you reading long into the night.”

—
The Scotsman

 

“Meticulously plotted . . . so dark and shocking.”

—The Associated Press

 

“Hannah takes pains to throw her readers off balance—and succeeds brilliantly.”

—
The Seattle Times

 

“Sophie Hannah will leave you bleary eyed after nights of suspenseful page turning.”

—Murder, Mystery &
Mayhem.com

 

“Hannah, who understands psychological mayhem as well as Ruth Rendell and maybe even Sigmund Freud, is best read with a crisis counselor on speed-dial. The tight plotting and excruciatingly precise clues make for a superlatively uneasy read.”

—
Kirkus Reviews

 

“A master of intricate plotting, Hannah seamlessly melds the police procedural with a gothic-inspired whodunit.”

—
Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

 

“Hannah deals brilliantly with the issues of artistic accomplishment and success, unrequited emotion, revenge, and retribution. This stunning psychological thriller from the author of the equally outstanding
The Wrong Mother
has the complexities of love at its core.”

—
Booklist
(starred review)

 

“A complex, unnerving study of relationships, with none more stressful than that of Sgt. Zailer and DC Waterhouse. Her exemplary skills put Hannah right up there with Ruth Rendell.”

—
Kirkus Reviews

 

“This utterly gripping thriller should establish Hannah as one of the great unmissables of this genre—intelligent, classy, and with a wonderfully gothic imagination.”

—
The Times
(London)

 

“Beautifully written and precision-engineered to unsettle.”

—
The Guardian
(London)

 

“A master class in plotting that adds twist after twist in a hectic finale.”

—
The Sunday Times
(London)

 

“Shockingly (and refreshingly) blunt riffs about the violent emotions of motherhood and the familial yearnings of men, along with chilling and darkly funny revelations about lust and loyalty, make this novel one of the season's most absorbing reads.”

—
O, The Oprah Magazine

 

“Paced like a ticking time bomb with flawlessly distinct characterization, this is a fiercely fresh and un-put-downable read.”

—
Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

 

“Sophie Hannah just gets better and better. Her plots are brilliantly cunning and entirely unpredictable. The writing is brilliant and brings us uncomfortably close to the dark, ambivalent impulses experienced by the parents of difficult, demanding children.”

—
The Guardian
(London)

 

“Sophie Hannah's ingenious, almost surreal mysteries are so intricately constructed that it's impossible to guess how they will end.”

—
The Daily Telegraph
(London)

 

“
The Wrong Mother
is Hannah's most accomplished novel yet. As the revelations tumble forth, the tension is screwed ever tighter until the final shocking outcome. Exemplary.”

—
Daily Express
(London)

 

“Dark psychological suspense . . . The power this novel packs derives from narrators that play fast and loose with what they know. . . . The solution is a stunner.”

—
The Boston Globe

 

“Sophie Hannah . . . delves successfully into moral quandaries: What does motherhood mean? What should a mother do when she thinks her child is in danger—especially if her own family doesn't agree?.... It's Alice's choices and their consequences that make
Little Face
so compelling.”

—
The Washington Post

 

“Few authors play with reality and perception as skillfully as Hannah does. . . . Riveting reading.”

—
Mystery Scene

 

“Echoes of
Gaslight
and
Rebecca
. . . a tautly claustrophobic spiral of a story delivered with self-belief.”

—
Kirkus Reviews

 

“The author is a poet by trade and she brings a wealth of psychological and literary subtlety to bear in this impressive novel. Smart and disarmingly unnerving.”

—
Daily Mail
(London)

 

“A chilling thriller. I was left thinking about the book for days, and that's usually a good thing.”

—
The Guardian
(London)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sophie Hannah is the author of the international bestsellers
Little Face
,
The Wrong Mother
, and
The Dead Lie Down
. In 2004 she won the Daphne Du Maurier Prize for suspense fiction, and she is also an award-winning poet. She lives in Cambridge, England, with her husband and two children.

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First published in Great Britain as
A Room Swept White
by
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd 2010
First published in Penguin Books 2011

 

Copyright © Sophie Hannah, 2010

All rights reserved

 

“Anchorage” by Fiona Sampson from
Common Prayer
(© 2007)
is reproduced by permission of Carcanet Press Ltd.

 

PUBLISHER'S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product
of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.