Five

‘Ridiculously good. Razor-sharp, wickedly funny, and darkly thrilling … Unforgettable’ Chris Whitaker, Sunday Times bestselling author of All the Colours of the Dark

'Original. Urgent. Disturbing. Brilliant. Quite unlike anything I’ve ever read. Don’t miss this one – Ilona Bannister is a major talent' Shari Lapena, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Couple Next Door and Everyone Here is Lying

‘Viscerally insightful, emotionally punchy, wryly observed, and with scalpel-precision writing, Five is tour-de-force of a novel. I read it in one sitting’ Sarah Pinborough, Sunday Times bestselling author of Behind Her Eyes

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Five passengers. Five minutes until the next train … five minutes until someone dies.

Someone will die here this morning, at this suburban train station. It will happen in the next five minutes when the 7:06 to London Victoria arrives.

On a train platform, five strangers unknowingly face a chilling countdown: one of them will die in five minutes.

In this gripping tale narrated with a sharp tongue, the five main characters – a child, a mother, a businessman, an old woman, and a gambler – will draw you in with their stories of fate, sacrifice, and the relationships we build and those we break.

As the clock ticks down, we look away from the demonic child Gideon. We judge his mother Emma who must surely be to blame. We are curiously compelled by the successful yet damaged businessman Liam. We pity the furious old Mrs Worth who grew up in a macabre household and failed at being a mother. And we fall in love with the beautiful Sonny who is on the verge of gambling his life away.

Five stories. Five minutes until a life ends. Unfolding in real time, FIVE is a tense and intriguing drama that will have you on the edge of your seat, as you race to the end to find out who survives … and who dies.

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Praise for Ilona Bannister:

‘A furious and tender exploration of family and motherhood’ Pandora Sykes

‘Richly textured, populated by wonderfully observed, deftly drawn characters … Smart, brave and often very funny’ Sarah Haywood, bestselling author of The Cactus

About the author

ILONA BANNISTER is a New Yorker who has lived in the UK for many years with her husband and sons. She is a dual qualified US lawyer and UK solicitor and practised immigration law in the UK before she started writing fiction. Her family’s history of migration to the US, her experience as an American mother raising children in the UK, and her work as a lawyer have led her to write stories about otherness, belonging, and what it means to be on the outside of a place looking in. Her first book When I Ran Away was longlisted for the First Novel Prize in 2021.