The New York Times' #1 Thriller of 2024

'Highly readable, twisty and shrewd' HANYA YANAGIHARA (on Instagram)

'The most disturbingly enjoyable read' EMMA HEALEY

'Diabolically good… a taut, wicked masterpiece' MONA AWAD

Eighty-one-year-old Maggie Burkhardt has left it all behind and spent the last five years ping-ponging between the world’s luxury hotels.

Now she has finally come to rest somewhere she can imagine staying forever: the Royal Karnak Hotel in Luxor, Egypt.

Maggie is no sweet old lady. She has a nasty, nosy little habit: she spies on her fellow guests and manipulates situations to 'liberate' them from what she sees as unhappy relationships.

When an eight-year-old boy, Otto, and his well-meaning mother arrive at the hotel, Maggie sees two easy targets. But she is more wrong than she could possibly know, and is soon locked in a death-spiral with Otto – has she finally met her match in a child one-tenth her age?

Crackling with the perceptive acid wit of The White Lotus and haloed by Shirley Jackson’s cruel, dark magic, Christopher Bollen’s new novel is a decadent and ghastly delight.

Early readers are saying…

'Absolutely brilliant and insane. I went in knowing very little about the book and I’m glad because it made it even more of a wild ride' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'I loved this book from the first page… The conflict between the old and the young in this cat and mouse tussle is brilliant. It’s a hard to put down novel and has a great twist at the end' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'I had an absolute blast reading this. Otto and Maggie are wild characters and their behavior is shocking!' ⭐⭐⭐⭐