The Hobby

A dark psychological police procedural from the award-winning author Lisa St Aubin de Terán

A dark psychological police procedural in the tradition of P. D. James and Tana French. When a routine police visit to investigate a peeping-tom complaint uncovers the first thread of a hidden network of abuse and murder, Detective John Custer becomes determined to pursue crimes that others would rather leave buried - even as the narrative enters the minds of those responsible.

When London police pay a visit to what appears to be nothing more than an elderly peeping tom, they unexpectedly stumble upon a loose thread that leads Detective John Custer into a dismal world of sex crimes, hidden graves and powerful and respected paedophiles. Ignoring the scepticism of his colleagues and superiors, Custer stubbornly follows his intuition to unravel the web of crimes gone cold.

Inspired by recent revelations of elite paedophile networks and cases of child abuse, The Hobby is a psychologically layered police procedural that follows Custer and his assistant, Sergeant Jolly Campbell, as they discover a network of crimes. Moving beyond the investigation itself, the narrative also enters the minds of the perpetrators, revealing the disturbing logic and hidden histories behind their crimes. From the fan club of a 1940s child star, through Istanbul, war-torn Burma and Cairo, and back to 1980s Britain, Custer and Campbell seek to bring justice to long-forgotten victims while vying for their own personal redemption.

"The author has an enviable narrative gift, and there is something magical about her deployment of it." The Guardian, on Lisa St Aubin de Terán

A tense and disturbing psychological crime novel likely to appeal to readers of writers such as P. D. James, Ian Rankin, Elizabeth George, Tana French, Kate Atkinson and Alan Parks.