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Halfway House

E-BookEPUBePub WasserzeichenE-Book
276 Seiten
Englisch
Orenda Bookserschienen am18.01.2024
On her first shift at an Edinburgh halfway house for violent offenders, a young woman is taken hostage ... and that's just the beginning... The twisty, shocking, darkly funny thriller by award-winning author Helen FitzGerald. `A new novel from Helen Fitzgerald is always a major event ... magnificent´ Mark Billingham `Outrageous, hilarious and dark as hell - this is Helen FitzGerald on absolute top form´ Doug Johnstone `[Lou] is irresistible and very funny ... The set-up is fascinating, the narrative is both fast-moving and convincing´ Literary Review _______ They`re the housemates from Hell... When her disastrous Australian love affair ends, Lou O´Dowd heads to Edinburgh for a fresh start, moving in with her cousin, and preparing for the only job she can find ... working at a halfway house for very high-risk offenders. Two killers, a celebrity paedophile and a paranoid coke dealer - all out on parole and all sharing their outwardly elegant Edinburgh townhouse with rookie night-worker Lou... And instead of finding some meaning and purpose to her life, she finds herself trapped in a terrifying game of cat and mouse where she stands to lose everything - including her life. Slick, darkly funny and nerve-janglingly tense, Halfway House is both a breathtaking thriller and an unapologetic reminder never to corner a desperate woman... __________________________ `Tense, claustrophobic and laugh-out-loud funny ... an amazingly talented writer´ Michael Wood `A genius combination of horror, humour and humanity´ B M Carroll Praise for Helen FitzGerald **Shortlisted for Theakston Crime Novel of the Year** `Sharp, shocking and savagely funny´ Chris Whitaker `Dark, dark, deliciously dark´ Amanda Jennings `Wickedly funny, breath-stealingly tense and utterly chilling´ Miranda Dickinson `The main character is one of the most extraordinary you`ll meet between the pages of a book´ Ian Rankin `Sublime´ Guardian `A dark, comic masterpiece´ Mark Edwards `Urgent, angry, absolutely terrifying´ Erin Kelly `Tantalisingly powerful´ The Times `The classic thriller gets a hell of a twist´ Heat `FitzGerald writes like a more focused Irvine Welsh or a less misogynist Philip Roth´ Daily Telegraph `Domestic life is rarely served up quite so dark as this´ Sun

Helen FitzGerald is the bestselling author of ten adult and young adult thrillers, including The Donor (2011) and The Cry (2013), which was longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and is now a major drama for BBC1. Helen worked as a criminal justice social worker for over fifteen years. She grew up in Victoria, Australia. She now lives in Glasgow with her husband.mehr
Verfügbare Formate
TaschenbuchKartoniert, Paperback
EUR13,00
E-BookEPUBePub WasserzeichenE-Book
EUR9,59

Produkt

KlappentextOn her first shift at an Edinburgh halfway house for violent offenders, a young woman is taken hostage ... and that's just the beginning... The twisty, shocking, darkly funny thriller by award-winning author Helen FitzGerald. `A new novel from Helen Fitzgerald is always a major event ... magnificent´ Mark Billingham `Outrageous, hilarious and dark as hell - this is Helen FitzGerald on absolute top form´ Doug Johnstone `[Lou] is irresistible and very funny ... The set-up is fascinating, the narrative is both fast-moving and convincing´ Literary Review _______ They`re the housemates from Hell... When her disastrous Australian love affair ends, Lou O´Dowd heads to Edinburgh for a fresh start, moving in with her cousin, and preparing for the only job she can find ... working at a halfway house for very high-risk offenders. Two killers, a celebrity paedophile and a paranoid coke dealer - all out on parole and all sharing their outwardly elegant Edinburgh townhouse with rookie night-worker Lou... And instead of finding some meaning and purpose to her life, she finds herself trapped in a terrifying game of cat and mouse where she stands to lose everything - including her life. Slick, darkly funny and nerve-janglingly tense, Halfway House is both a breathtaking thriller and an unapologetic reminder never to corner a desperate woman... __________________________ `Tense, claustrophobic and laugh-out-loud funny ... an amazingly talented writer´ Michael Wood `A genius combination of horror, humour and humanity´ B M Carroll Praise for Helen FitzGerald **Shortlisted for Theakston Crime Novel of the Year** `Sharp, shocking and savagely funny´ Chris Whitaker `Dark, dark, deliciously dark´ Amanda Jennings `Wickedly funny, breath-stealingly tense and utterly chilling´ Miranda Dickinson `The main character is one of the most extraordinary you`ll meet between the pages of a book´ Ian Rankin `Sublime´ Guardian `A dark, comic masterpiece´ Mark Edwards `Urgent, angry, absolutely terrifying´ Erin Kelly `Tantalisingly powerful´ The Times `The classic thriller gets a hell of a twist´ Heat `FitzGerald writes like a more focused Irvine Welsh or a less misogynist Philip Roth´ Daily Telegraph `Domestic life is rarely served up quite so dark as this´ Sun

Helen FitzGerald is the bestselling author of ten adult and young adult thrillers, including The Donor (2011) and The Cry (2013), which was longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and is now a major drama for BBC1. Helen worked as a criminal justice social worker for over fifteen years. She grew up in Victoria, Australia. She now lives in Glasgow with her husband.
Details
Weitere ISBN/GTIN9781914585715
ProduktartE-Book
EinbandartE-Book
FormatEPUB
Format HinweisePub Wasserzeichen
FormatE101
Erscheinungsjahr2024
Erscheinungsdatum18.01.2024
Seiten276 Seiten
SpracheEnglisch
Dateigrösse959 Kbytes
Artikel-Nr.13445160
Rubriken
Genre9201

Inhalt/Kritik

Leseprobe



CHAPTER ONE

Two Months Earlier


Lou was going to remember people s birthdays. She was going to fall in love enough to share a bed. There d be no need to cry or to lie for the new Lou, skipping across the grass in The Meadows, taking in a show, posing at the castle, as she no doubt would do. She imagined herself each night before falling asleep: linking hands with two great friends at Hogmanay, part of a huge circle of beaming Scots - May auld acquaintance be forgot - moving in and out, the circle as one, voices as one, in and out, faster, faster, auld. lang. syne. One time - honestly, it happened twice - she had a tartan orgasm.

She was already transforming into her new self. The old Lou would never have gone for a job like the one she was about to interview for. With two minutes to go, Lou closed the blinds to shut out the every-city night-lights of Melbourne. She styled a slapdash ponytail, took a seat, and opened the link. She was the first on screen, so she froze, maintained her pose. She must not loosen the thong sawing away at her crack, she must not scratch the pubes that were growing back. In the last two weeks she d applied for every lowly admin and retail job in and around Edinburgh. No luck so far - seventeen rejections, twenty-four ghostings. Catering and hospitality were out - she d had enough of smiling at rich people. In despair, she had widened the search to include the care sector, and: bingo! An interview. It sounded exciting, it was in the centre of the most beautiful city in the world, and it was only three night shifts a week. Four days adventuring, every single week. Farewell unhappy idiot Lou and all the people she knew. She would get this job. And she would never - ow, god, she wriggled - ever, wear a thong again.

A skinny, spiky redhead - Polly, seventy-ish - appeared on screen, sipping her coffee. Hello, she said, no smile. Just waiting on David, won t be long.

It was morning on the other side of the world, in that fairy-tale land as far away as you could get. Imagine, she d be jetlagged soon. I m so jetlagged, she would say as she sipped a pint of ale with an unforgettable friend in an ancient pub.

Polly coughed. She must be a smoker, nearer fifty than seventy.

Lou could hear a man s voice in the background:

Morning! the man said.

Polly s face got nicer as she turned her head. Hey, pal, just doing interviews, she said.

Oops, so sorry, said the voice off screen. I ll pop the kettle on, and I m closing the door behind me.

Cheers, pal, said Polly, her face pinched once more. She was reading something that disgusted her then looking up at Lou without changing her face. There was an old calendar on the flaky wall behind her. 2019.

Hello. David had a Mallen streak, a lopsided head, cool jacket, no tie. There were bookshelves in his background - Social Work Practice in the Criminal Justice System, Scottish Criminal Law Essentials; Race, Gender and-

She had read enough.

You must be Lou. How are you doing?

Good, thanks. She must find cleverer things to say.

Nice to meet you, he said. I m David Wallace, general manager and this is Polly Grange, project manager of SASOL.

This stood for Supported Accommodation Services for Offenders, Lothian. Lou did not expect it to be pronounced sarsehole . She bit her lip.

As you ll know from the job description, SASOL is a five-bed unit for very-high-risk offenders.

She hadn t noticed the word very in the advertisement. By accident, she might be about to get an important job, a meaningful job, an exciting job - not with bad boys, but with very bad boys. She had tingles.

It s not like other services, David said. There are only three in the country: us; our women s unit nearby; and another non-profit up north. This job is at the men s unit, doing three night shifts a week. The residents in the unit have served more than four years in prison and have been released on licence with a condition of residence for twelve months. Most are MAPPA level two or three.

She would have to look that up.

And all have stringent licence conditions such as MFMC and DASS â¦

And that and that.

â¦a 10pm to 7am curfew, as well as various additional restrictions regarding internet use, employment, leisure activities, contact with family members, etcetera. The role of the night-care worker is to ensure that SASOL is a safe place for all residents, to offer support and advice in relation to any risks and needs, to promote rehabilitation, to keep records, do handover meetings with day staff and to respond to any incidents. How this goes is I m going to ask you three questions, then Polly is going to ask you three questions. It should take fifteen minutes. My first question relates to values.

This all felt very giggly; took her back to parent-teacher meetings - Lou against all the adults, all the adults against Lou; every teacher wondering the same thing: How can Lou be so unhappy and disruptive when her mother is so dedicated and loving, and when her father is hilarious and a spunk?

Your reference from the café was very good, David said. No problems there. But the second reference has raised some concerns.

Oh dear.

To whom it may concern. David put on his glasses and cleared his throat. We are managing partners of Genova s Limited, a property group that manages apartment complexes and budget hotels, all of which are located in the Melbourne metropolitan area. We are writing to confirm that Miss Louise O Dowd worked for the company for two years. Her position was project worker at North Melbourne House, a hundred-bed homeless hostel. Her main duty was to deep-clean rooms that had been soiled by overdoses, violent incidents and suicide attempts. She also dealt with the challenging behaviour of very-high-risk criminals. Miss O Dowd proved herself to be strong of stomach and we have no hesitation recommending her for demeaning care tasks in a dangerous setting.

Frieda and Alan Bainbridge.

Alan Bainbridge was Lou s boyfriend - till she found out he was married. Then he was her sugar daddy - till his wife found out. Lou had accepted that it was over and that there would be no contact. She was excellent at closure - a little too good some might say. She certainly wasn t stalkerish. All she did was send one teensy text. She was moving to the UK. She wanted to do office work. She needed to fill in the two-year gap in her CV. He employed hundreds of people. Could he please give her a reference?

One hour later, the above appeared in Lou s Gmail - not from Alan, but from his wife, the formidable Frieda.

David, SASOL s general manager, took off his glasses and had a sip of water. Is this for real, or does your old employer have difficulty with English?

Polish is Frieda s first language. She must have written it.

Why did she describe working with the homeless as demeaning? How do you feel about this kind of work?

Lou had an answer for this. The Bainbridges are money-makers, she said, that s all they see. They re rich because money matters to them more than compassion. My values are very different. Working with the homeless, as with ex-offenders, is a privilege.

David and Polly clearly liked what she was saying. She could relax, let the rest of the interview flow.

Conflict resolution?

Easy. She thought about how she felt at the last meal she had with her parents, how she lowered her voice till her dad did too and how she breathed in and out for a while instead of stabbing her mother with a fork.

Building relationships?

A cinch. Lou was an army brat, made friends more quickly than cups of tea. (She didn t add that she was even better at discarding them.)

How about ethical dilemmas?

Bring em on. Lou s only work experience, apart from the café, was as a sugar baby. She was one big walking, fucking ethical dilemma. Who was she to judge bad boys when she was a bad girl? She didn t tell them any of this, of course, but she did say all the right things.

Or she thought she did. She might have said all the wrong things. She tossed and turned till 7am, when a message pinged in from Polly: Congratulations. We were very impressed by your work experience and your enthusiasm.

Lou pounced from the bed. She had a proper job. In a faraway land. Alexa, play The Proclaimers . She danced for an hour. She was...

mehr

Autor

Helen FitzGerald is the bestselling author of ten adult and young adult thrillers, including The Donor (2011) and The Cry (2013), which was longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and is now a major drama for BBC1. Helen worked as a criminal justice social worker for over fifteen years. She grew up in Victoria, Australia. She now lives in Glasgow with her husband.