The Insect Farm
-
- $9.99
Publisher Description
A cleverly plotted mystery of love,jealousy and suspense, Stuart Prebble's eagerly awaited new novel - The Insect Farm - will linger long in the mind of its readers. Brothers Jonathan and Roger Maguire each has an obsession. For Jonathan, it is his beautiful and talented girlfriend Harriet. For Roger, it is the elaborate universe he has constructed in a shed in their parents' garden, populated by millions of tiny insects. But Roger lives in an impenetrable world of his own and, after the mysterious death of their parents, his brother Jonathan is forced to give up his studies to take care of him. This obligation forces Jonathan to live apart from Harriet -- further fuelling his already jealous nature. Their lives are abruptly shattered by a sudden and violent death, and Jonathan is drawn into a cat-and-mouse game with the police. Does Roger know more than he is letting on? A cleverly plotted mystery with a shock ending, The Insect Farm -- Stuart Prebble's awaited new novel -- will linger long in the mind of its readers.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Prebble, the CEO of the U.K. television network ITV, makes his U.S. debut with a creepy and effective modern gothic. Unprepossessing Englishman Jonathan Macguire has a mentally handicapped older brother, Roger, whose great obsession in life is his "insect farm" an enormous living collection of bugs that he grows and feeds in various troughs, jars, and buckets in a garden shed. Jonathan is also deeply in love with his musically talented and pretty girlfriend, Harriet, and struggles with jealousy when another musician develops a crush on her. While Jonathan is away at school in Newcastle, his parents die in a fire, with Roger safe working at his insect farm. Jonathan returns home to care for his brother and is soon drawn into Roger's strange world. When calamity strikes, the insect farm seems a perfect solution for each brother's problems. Prebble maintains a consistent aura of dread throughout, but overwriting bogs down a tale that would probably have worked better at short story length.
