A Good Death

‘A good death is better than a bad conscience,’ said Sophie.

1983 - Georgie, Theo, Sophie and Helena, four disparate Cambridge University students, set out to scale Ausangate, one of the highest and most sacred peaks in the Andes.

Seduced into employing the handsome and enigmatic Wamani as a guide, the four women are initiated into the mystically dangerous side of Peru, Wamani and themselves as they travel from Cuzco to the mountain, a journey that will shape their lives forever.

2013 - though the women are still close, the secrets and betrayals of Ausangate chafe at the friendship.

A girls’ weekend at a lonely English farmhouse descends into conflict with the insensitive inclusion of an overbearing young academic toyboy brought along by Theo. Sparked by his unexpected presence, pent up petty jealousies, recriminations and bitterness finally explode the truth of Ausangate, setting the women on a new and dangerous path.

Sharply observant and darkly comic, Helen Davis's début novel is an elegant tale of murder, seduction, vengeance, and the value of a good friendship.

Davis deftly weaves the 1980's readjustment of British social boundaries into her novel as she transports the reader from coming of age student life in England, through adventure, death and life changing experiences in Peru, to a disastrous attempt at rediscovering lost youth and innocence, nearly thirty years too late.