Why did Mary Wade die in a house fire on St Jude's Grove? Her carer, a young woman new to the profession, might know the answer. Her account reveals a patient struggling with spiralling mental illness, ghosts from the past and an increasingly hostile relationship with the downstairs neighbour - a novelist who writes violent fiction.





But as the carer tells her side of the story, how she overcame her own difficult circumstances to take the job in the first place, how she tried to protect her ward from the novelist's threats, she begins to fall under increasing suspicion. Was she caring for Mary...or was she only caring for herself?



Anthony Good studied at Oxford and the University of East Anglia. He is the recipient of a Man Booker scholarship. He previously published Kill [redacted]. He lives in London with his partner and child.



A delicate but merciless portrait of a man in the grip of a mental breakdown. His voice is a triumph: intelligent but pedantic and emotionally constipated, seething with barely suppressed rage, and unable to admit the truth about his marriage or motives. Whether this is an elaborate revenge fantasy or a factual account is up to the reader - either way, this outstanding novel is a fascinating and complex read



Provocative and compelling, it is a spectacular debut



This sharp, acerbic novel manages to be both playful and smart, vividly funny and engaged with a serious and almost Dostoevskian question about the morality of judgement and revenge. Formally inventive, written with great verve and confidence, it is a highly impressive debut