A Ladder to the Sky

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What to expect

Random House presents the audiobook edition of A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne, read by Richard E. Grant, Richard Cordery, Nina Sosanya and Laurence Kennedy.

A psychological drama of cat and mouse, A Ladder to the Sky shows how easy it is to achieve the world if you are prepared to sacrifice your soul.

If you look hard enough, you can find stories pretty much anywhere. They don’t even have to be your own. Or so would-be writer Maurice Swift decides very early on in his career.

A chance encounter in a Berlin hotel with celebrated novelist Erich Ackermann gives him an opportunity to ingratiate himself with someone more powerful than him. For Erich is lonely, and he has a story to tell. Whether or not he should do so is another matter entirely.

Once Maurice has made his name, he sets off in pursuit of other people’s stories. He doesn’t care where he finds them – or to whom they belong – as long as they help him rise to the top.

Stories will make him famous but they will also make him beg, borrow and steal. They may even make him do worse.

Critics Review

A deliciously dark tale of ambition, seduction and literary theft . . . compelling and terrifying, powerful and intensely unsettling. In Maurice Swift, Boyne has given us an unforgettable protagonist, dangerous and irresistible in equal measure. The result is an ingeniously conceived novel that confirms Boyne as one of the most assured writers of his generation.
Observer
Maurice Swift, the novelist protagonist of John Boyne’s A Ladder to the Sky, is a bookish version of Patricia Highsmith’s psychopathic antihero Tom Ripley.
The Times
A dark morality tale in the mould of Patricia Highsmith . . . consistently intriguing
Daily Mail
Everything the wonderful Irish novelist John Boyne writes is special . . . a highly entertaining read
S Magazine, Sunday Express
Gripping . . . John Boyne is a master storyteller and fans will doubtless be captivated by this chilling and darkly comic tale of unrelenting ambition
Daily Express
Boyne delivers a perfect balance of pace and detail to keep you gripped throughout
i Newspaper
Maurice Swift is a literary Tom Ripley . . . a first-class page turner
Guardian
It charts the rise of Maurice Swift, as cold and manipulative a character as you’re likely to meet this year . . . the story takes an ever darkening series of twists and turns
Express
‘A Ladder to the Sky is endlessness inventive and wickedly funny. Boyne’s irredeemable antihero holds up a brutally well lit mirror to every writer who has ever wondered what they need to do to do that little better...’
Author of A Place Called Winter
Clever, chilling and beautifully paced, a study of inner corrosion that Patricia Highsmith could not have done better
The Times

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