We're giving 100 booklovers the chance to read Claire Coughlan's atmospheric and gripping murder mystery, Where They Lie, before it's out in February 2024.
Some stories demand to be told. They keep coming back, echoing down through the decades, until they find a teller...
Dublin, 1943
Actress Julia Bridges disappears.
The last sighting of her is entering the house of Gloria Fitzpatrick, who is later put on trial for the murder of another woman whose abortion she facilitated. But it’s never proved that Gloria had a hand in Julia’s death – and Julia’s body has never been found.
Gloria, however, is sentenced to life in an institution for the criminally insane, until her apparent suicide a few years later, and the truth of what happened to Julia Bridges dies with her.
Until...
Dublin, 1968
Nicoletta Sarto is an ambitious junior reporter for the Irish Sentinel when the bones of Julia Bridges are discovered in the garden of a house on the outskirts of Dublin.
Drawn into investigating the 25-year-old mystery of Julia’s disappearance and her link to the notorious Gloria Fitzpatrick, the story takes Nicoletta into the tangled underworld of the illegal abortion industry, stirring up long-buried secrets from her own past.
As much a murder mystery story as a look at a young woman’s struggle to succeed in a man's world, Where They Lie is a beautifully atmospheric debut that will stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page.
'A thrillingly dark and atmospheric tale, richly evocative of its time, especially for those of us old enough to remember 1968.' John Banville
'This isn't just a mystery novel: it's a window into a vanished world.' Tana French
'Where They Lie is gripping and brilliantly atmospheric, and Nicoletta Sarto, the novel's protagonist – the way she talks, the way she thinks – is a great invention.' Roddy Doyle
'Atmospheric and absorbing, an ambitious young journalist finds herself at the heart of a corkscrew tale she never knew existed.' Val McDermid
Read the first chapter