



Scrap
'Blackly humorous and enjoyably twisted' – Paula Hawkins
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
'Blackly humorous and enjoyably twisted'
Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train
'A knotted mystery too intriguing to leave unpicked'
Alice Slater, author of Death of a Bookseller
'Binge-worthy . . . a brilliantly immersive and almost cinematic experience'
Jenny Mustard, author of Okay Days
Recently dumped and stuck with the mortgage, artist Esther Ray wants to burn the world, but instead, she reluctantly accepts a scrapbooking job from the deliriously wealthy Naomi Duncan. The scrapbooks, a secret birthday gift for Naomi's husband Bryce, trace the Duncan's twenty-five-year marriage. The conditions: Esther must include every piece of paper she's been sent, must sign an NDA, and must only contact Naomi using the burner phone provided. Otherwise she'll spoil the surprise.
As Esther binges true-crime podcasts and works through the near-two hundred-boxes of Duncan detritus, she finds herself infatuated with the gilded family - until, mid-project, Naomi dies suspiciously. When Esther becomes convinced the husband killed her, she uses the scrapbooks' trove of information to insert herself into the Duncan's' lives to prove it. But the more Esther investigates, the further she is dragged back to the scorched earth of her past and the famous artist who paid her to disappear.
Laced with pitch-black humour and conspiratorial unease, Scrap is a razor-sharp examination of wealth and power, art and truth, of the line between justice and revenge - and who gets to cross it.
See what readers are saying about Scrap
'No book has kept me so gripped since Gone Girl!!!'
NetGalley reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
'Such an original author . . . Highly recommended'
NetGalley reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
'I loved every single minute of this book. Its dark and mysterious with a twisty, unexpected story'
NetGalley reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
'I absolutely devoured this book. It was the kind of weird and intriguing story I can never get enough of' NetGalley reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Henkle's overstuffed latest (after Other People's Clothes) centers on a scrapbook artist investigating the death of her client. Esther Ray returns home to North Carolina after a vacation and discovers that her girlfriend has left her. Now solely responsible for her mortgage payments, Esther takes a job with the wealthy Naomi Duncan, who asks her to bind documents and family photos into scrapbooks as a birthday gift for Naomi's husband, Bryce. From the beginning, Naomi is dodgy about the job, forcing Esther to sign a five-page NDA and only communicate with her via a burner phone. As Esther trawls through the documents, she grows obsessed with Naomi and Bryce's glamorous life, though she notices hints of darkness around its edges. After Naomi dies in an apparent skiing accident, Esther gradually comes to suspect that Bryce may have killed her. In one flashback after another, Henkle details Esther's childhood traumas, her obsession with true crime podcasts, and the unhinged intensity that has gotten her fired from previous jobs. Under the weight of all this exposition, the novel wobbles on the way toward its outlandish conclusion. Despite an intriguing setup, this falls short.