Five Bad Deeds
the DARK and TWISTY thriller longlisted for the CWA Twisted Dagger 2025
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3.0 • 5 Ratings
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
From the internationally bestselling author of Sweet Little Lies comes a dark and twisty thriller about secrets, lies and revenge. Perfect for fans of Liane Moriarty, Laura Marshall and T. M. Logan.
* LONGLISTED FOR THE CWA TWISTED DAGGER 2025 *
'A dark, addictive, suburban nightmare' Chris Whitaker
'Ferociously entertaining, spiky, bitchy, funny' Catherine Ryan Howard
‘A page-gripping, nail-gnawing good read’ Cara Hunter
'A deliciously dark story' Nikki Smith
Ellen Walsh has done something very, very bad. If only she knew what it was . . .
Teacher, mother, wife, and all-around good citizen Ellen is juggling non-stop commitments, from raising a teen and two toddlers to job-hunting, and renovating her dream home.
Amidst the chaos, a note arrives in the mail declaring:
Sooner or later everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.
Ellen has no idea why someone would send this to her. She tells the occasional white lie, has a sharp tongue now and again, but she’s done nothing to incur the wrath of an anonymous enemy.
As she races to discover who’s set on destroying her life, Ellen receives more threatening messages, each one hitting closer to home and everything that she cherishes.
Could the five bad deeds that come back to haunt her explain why things have taken such a deadly turn?
Praise for Five Bad Deeds . . .
‘This book is genius. Funny, authentic, keeps you guessing and gasping as you can’t trust ANYONE’ Jo Callaghan
'Deliciously waspish, twisty, and relatable' Claire McGowan
'Five Bad Deeds is an absolute scorcher with a moral message about the effect of our actions on others at its dark and thrilling heart' Victoria Selman
'Layered characters, gut-punching twists and beautifully written' Jo Spain
'An utterly compelling, superbly characterised, constantly fascinating mystery' Gytha Lodge
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this devastating suspense novel, Frear (Shed No Tears) cycles through the perspectives of married couple Ellen and Adam Walsh and a cluster of their neighbors and relatives to examine the sometimes suffocating bonds of small-town England. Ellen, a well-meaning teacher and mother of three, receives an enigmatic letter warning her that "sooner or later, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences." The threat is followed by the exposure of Ellen's eponymous bad deeds, beginning with the leak of drunk photos on Facebook that lead to a visit from Social Services, before escalating to a police investigation into her alleged affair with a 17-year-old student who's gone missing. With her life on the brink of collapse, Ellen races to answer one question: why is someone doing this to her? Frear keeps readers on their toes from the start, but what elevates this above standard genre fare is the freshness and acuity of her language: a friend who ends an affair reminds Ellen of her own young son, "all puffed up and proud that he'd tidied his toys like I'd asked"; a McMansion "seemed to hang back from the rest of the village with the slightly embarrassed air of someone who knows they've overdressed." This is a must-read for fans of Tana French and Gillian Flynn.
