Our Kind of Cruelty

January 22, 2018
British journalist Hall (Everything and Nothing) makes her U.S. debut with a disturbing psychological thriller. Sometimes there’s a fine line between crazy in love and just plain crazy, and for glossy London golden couple Mike Hayes and Verity “V” Walton, it’s one that becomes blurrier when, after years of all-consuming passion, V decides she wants something different. Or does she? Investment banker Mike refuses to accept her moving on to advertising tycoon Angus Metcalf at face value, viewing it instead as a new, higher-stakes version of the Crave, their kinky private role-playing game. Hall constructs a suspenseful plot that capitalizes on considerable ambiguity about her characters’ motivations, especially the key issue of the extent to which V, a scientist working in AI, might be manipulating Mike. But with the story unfolding through the eyes of the emotionally damaged Mike, who was abused as a boy, readers never learn enough about V and arguably a lot more than they might wish about a narrator whose head is an uncomfortably creepy place to be. Still, Hall is a writer to watch. Agent: Lizzy Kremer, David Higham (U.K.).

February 15, 2018
Here's a change--a psychological thriller in which a man is the crazy one.Michael Hayes made it through a childhood of poverty, abuse, and misery to what was, for him, the pinnacle of happiness--his eight-year love affair with Verity Metcalf, a girl he met at Bristol University. The centerpiece of their intensely passionate connection was a game they invented called the Crave. The pair would separate at a bar and wait for a man to hit on her; it never took long. From across the room, Michael would watch for the signal. When she touched her silver eagle necklace, he "would push through the mass of people, pulling at the useless man drooling over her, and ask him what he thought he was doing talking to my girlfriend. And because I am useful-looking in that tall, broad way, and because V likes me to lift weights and start all my days with a run, they would invariably back off with their hands in front of their faces." Having dispatched the hapless patsy, they would sometimes head to the bathroom to have sex. All is going well until Michael takes a temporary job in the U.S. in order to make a lot of money quickly, working toward his master plan of retiring by 45. By the time he returns to England, things have gone awry. One of the first pieces of mail he receives is an invitation to V's wedding. He's only upset for a moment, excited to realize this is just one step in Crave, the most daring one ever. "Part of me doesn't want to write it all down like this, but my barrister says I must," he explains.Which is worse--an emotionally disturbed murderer or a woman with a fierce libido? Hall's U.S. debut is designed to show just how much trouble society has answering that question.

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March 15, 2018
This toxic tale of obsession marks the author's American debut. Although badly damaged by a brutal childhood, Mike Hayes has managed to make a success of himself. What holds him together is Verity Metcalf. He remakes his body to her specifications, and he creates a magnificent home that conforms to her ideals. He has every expectation that they will spend the rest of their lives together in exclusionary bliss, for what and who else would they need? When Verity abruptly marries an even wealthier older man, Mike believes it's all just part of a twisted game they used to play and bides his time until he can reclaim her. Hall brings the unreliable narrator to new heights in this disturbing narrative while subtly planting the seed in the reader's mind that Verity, damaged by her own childhood issues, may be feeding Mike's mania to suit her own ends. For fans of Nabokov's Lolita, Highsmith's Ripley tales, or Christine Mangan's recently published first novel, Tangerine (2018).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

July 30, 2018
In Hall’s dark, disturbing thriller, reader Hendrix presents a chilling portrayal of narrator Mike Hayes, a London banker convinced that the love of his life is toying with him by marrying an ultra-wealthy, socially prominent ad man. For years, Verity “V” Wilton has been Mike’s muse and his partner in a creepy game of seduction they call the Crave. Prior to her wedding, V stopped communicating with Mike, but, as convincingly interpreted by Hendrix, he remains too infatuated with her to accept her rejection as anything but an invitation to play the game. Reader Matsuura’s V sounds initially polite when confronted by Mike, then bemused and finally troubled. Hendrix has a bit of fun with Angus Metcalf, V’s groom, making him sound fatuous and elitist, while Matsuura gives voice to several other women, including V’s icy upper-class mother and a needy business associate of Mike’s who tries to push herself into his life. But it’s Hendrix’s relentless, intensely focused Mike that turns Hall’s novel into something more than just another exercise in psychological suspense. A MCD hardcover.