Fear
A brilliantly gripping and twisty psychological thriller
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2.8 • 4 Ratings
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- £2.99
Publisher Description
The Guardian, Daily Telegraph and Irish Times Book of the Year.
'Something we've not seen before in contemporary crime fiction' GUARDIAN
'[An] uncomfortably close-to-home thriller' SUNDAY TIMES CRIME CLUB
'As intellectually stimulating as it is gripping' DAILY TELEGRAPH, BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2018
'Takes you right into the heart of darkness' MAIL ON SUNDAY
'A must-have new read' DAILY EXPRESS
'Wonderfully sinister' THE OBSERVER
'Frightening' THE TIMES
'Addictive' INDEPENDENT
'Terrific' JOANNE HARRIS
'Brilliantly done' FIONA BARTON
'A great achievement' HERMAN KOCH
'Claustrophobic and unsettling' BBC NEWS
'[A] creepy tale of obsession' SUNDAY MIRROR
'An unsettling tale of merciless self-scrutiny' RENEE KNIGHT
'A terrifying study of a family threatened by the tenant living downstairs' WOMAN & HOME
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How far would you go to protect your family?
Family is everything. So what if yours was being terrorised by a neighbour - a man who doesn't listen to reason, whose actions become more erratic and sinister with each passing day?
You go to the police, but they can't help you. You become afraid to leave your family at home alone. But there's nothing more you can do to protect them.
Or is there...?
FEAR is a brilliantly grippling, original psychological thriller - for fans of THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW, ANATOMY OF A SCANDAL and THE DINNER.
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FEAR is translated from the German by Imogen Taylor
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the start of German author Kurbjuweit's unsettling U.S. debut, Randolph Tiefenthaler visits his unresponsive 77-year-old father, Hermann, in an institution that at first appears to be a care facility, but is in fact a prison. Hermann is serving time for the shooting death of Dieter Tiberius, Randolph's downstairs neighbor in Berlin. Randolph's narration shifts back in forth in time between his "happy" childhood, when he nevertheless feared being shot by his gun-loving father, and the recent past, when he fears what Dieter may do to his family. Dieter, initially solicitous to his new upstairs neighbors, begins leaving sexually suggestive writings addressed to Rebecca, Randolph's wife, and letters suggesting that Randolph and Rebecca are sexually abusing their children. Kurbjuweit generates suspense by making the reader wonder what exactly precipitates Dieter's killing, who is really responsible, and what the reader might do in the Tiefenthalers' place. The question of whether any of us is capable of murder is not new, and while Kurbjuweit's characters are also not unique, we care enough about these flawed people to keep turning the pages.
