The Cruelty of Morning
Dec 2015 · Kings Road Publishing
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300
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About this ebook
‘Pick up Hilary Bonner at your peril - you won’t be able to put her down’ - Val McDermidA twenty-five-year old murder, a missing girl, and a fatal attraction in a small seaside town...It is the first Sunday in August 1970. Another beautiful day in a summer that is burning itself to a horrifying close. A lone swimmer, Jennifer Stone, strikes out from the shore of Pelham Bay, deep into the blue. With her eyes closed against the sun’s sparkle, she floats blissfully into the rigid corpse of a young woman in a tattered red dress.
The next day, a local girl disappears. She is never found, and both investigations are closed.
Twenty-five years later, Jennifer, by now a Fleet Street journalist at the top of her game, returns to visit her mother’s home in Pelham Bay. Upon opening the local newspaper, she discovers that the failed investigations have been reopened. Back in London, a high-flying government minister reads the same story and his world is shaken.
What happened that blazing August a quarter of a century ago will shape both his and Jennifer’s futures, as intense tragedy is resolved and a long-buried mystery comes to light.
The Cruelty of the Morning is a tale of dangerous obsessions, small-town secrets and a destructive, mesmerising love affair.
Hilary Bonner’s powerful debut novel caused a storm in the then relatively cosy world of crime fiction when it was first published in 1995. Indeed the sexual content was so strong that Hilary was asked to tone it down - the first time in their hundred-year-plus history that her publishers Heinemann had made such a request of a first-time author.
‘Hilary Bonner’s secret is that as a top journalist she's been there, seen it close up and asked the crucial questions. She plots with pace, passion and that marvellous ability to keep you turning the pages long after you meant to put out the light’ - Peter Lovesey, bestselling crime writer
‘A darkly erotic thriller. Mesmerising
The next day, a local girl disappears. She is never found, and both investigations are closed.
Twenty-five years later, Jennifer, by now a Fleet Street journalist at the top of her game, returns to visit her mother’s home in Pelham Bay. Upon opening the local newspaper, she discovers that the failed investigations have been reopened. Back in London, a high-flying government minister reads the same story and his world is shaken.
What happened that blazing August a quarter of a century ago will shape both his and Jennifer’s futures, as intense tragedy is resolved and a long-buried mystery comes to light.
The Cruelty of the Morning is a tale of dangerous obsessions, small-town secrets and a destructive, mesmerising love affair.
Hilary Bonner’s powerful debut novel caused a storm in the then relatively cosy world of crime fiction when it was first published in 1995. Indeed the sexual content was so strong that Hilary was asked to tone it down - the first time in their hundred-year-plus history that her publishers Heinemann had made such a request of a first-time author.
‘Hilary Bonner’s secret is that as a top journalist she's been there, seen it close up and asked the crucial questions. She plots with pace, passion and that marvellous ability to keep you turning the pages long after you meant to put out the light’ - Peter Lovesey, bestselling crime writer
‘A darkly erotic thriller. Mesmerising
About the author
A journalist of many years’ standing, Hilary Bonner is a former showbusiness editor of the Mail on Sunday, the Daily Mirror and the Sun, and has written several non-fiction books about showbusiness. The Cruelty of Morning, first published in 1995, was her first novel; her most recent crime novel, Death Comes First, was published in 2015, and others include Friends to Die For, while in all she has published eleven novels, five non-fiction books, two ghosted autobiographies, one ghosted biography, two companions to TV programmes, and a number of short stories. A former Chairman of the Crime Writers’ Association, she is now a full-time writer. She lives in Somerset.
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