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Before the Fall

Paperback / ISBN-13: 9781444779776

Price: £9.99

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Winner of the 2017 Edgar Award for Best Novel
Selected by The Sunday Times as one of the top page-turners of summer 2017

FROM THE CREATOR OF THE AWARD WINNING FARGO AND LEGION TV SERIES

‘Hawley’s sublime prose glows on every page in this literary thriller of the highest quality’ Daily Mail


THE RICH ARE DIFFERENT. BUT FATE IS BLIND.

A private jet plunges into the sea.

The only survivors are down-on his luck artist Scott Burroughs and JJ Bateman, the four year old son of a super-rich TV executive.

For saving the boy, Scott is suddenly a hero.

And then, as the official investigation is rapidly overtaken by a media frenzy, it seems he may also be a villain.

Why was he on the plane in the first place, and why did it crash?

What's Inside

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Reviews

Before the Fall is a ravishing and riveting beauty of a thriller. It's also a deep exploration of desire, betrayal, creation, family, fate, mortality, and rebirth. It's one part Dennis Lehane, one part Dostoevsky. I was spellbound from first page to last; I haven't fully recovered yet.
Michael Cunningham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours
I started and finished Before the Fall in one day. That begins to tell you what kind of smart, compellingly dramatic read it is. So read it.
James Patterson
Before the Fall is an astonishing, character-driven tour-de-force. The story is a multi-layered, immersive examination of truth, relationships, and our unquenchable thirst for the media's immediate explanation of unfathomable tragedy.
Karin Slaughter
This isn't just a good novel; it's a great one. I trusted no one in these pages, yet somehow cared about them all. Before the Fall brings a serrated edge to every character, every insight, and every wicked twist.
Brad Meltzer, bestselling author of The President's Shadow
A masterly blend of mystery, suspense, tragedy, and shameful media hype...a gritty tale of a man overwhelmed by unwelcome notoriety, with a stunning, thoroughly satisfying conclusion.
Publishers Weekly starred review
Like the successful screenwriter that he is, Hawley piles on enough intrigues and plot complications to keep you hooked.
Kirkus Reviews
Noah Hawley really knows how to keep a reader turning the pages, but there's more to the novel than suspense. On one hand Before the Fall is a complex, compulsively readable thrill ride of a novel. On the other, it is an exploration of the human condition, a meditation on the vagaries of human nature, the dark side of celebrity, the nature of art, the power of hope and the danger of an unchecked media. The combination is a potent, gritty thriller that exposes the high cost of news as entertainment and the randomness of fate.
New York Times Book Review
This is an unequivocally excellent book, a literary novel, a thriller, a whodunit and a meditation about life and love. Each paragraph deserves a rereading, but is too exciting to let one pause.
Literary Review
This is one of the year's best suspense novels, a mesmerizing, surprise-jammed mystery that works purely on its own, character-driven terms...Mr. Hawley has made it very, very easy to race through his book in a state of breathless suspense.
New York Times
High-class entertainment.
John Williams, Mail on Sunday
As a pacey whodunit...this is the perfect summer read.
The Times
There are some books...that stay with you long after you've read them. The characters are so real and because of this their fates matter. Before The Fall by Noah Hawley is one of these books.
Irish Independent
An addictive thriller whose thematic richness is reminiscent of Franzen.
The Sunday Times
A searingly told, multi-layered portrait of celebrity in the modern world with a tantalising mystery at its heart...Hawley's sublime prose glows on every page in this literary thriller of the highest quality, which never loses its grip.
Daily Mail
A thriller of masterful precision...Hawley meditates on celebrity, modern journalism and timeless heroism, the rich American's psyche post-9/11 and messy politics, and he does it with nuanced, precise style. This is a thriller that has brains as well as balls.
Independent
Overall, it's hard to imagine a better marriage of genre and literary fiction.
The Sunday Times, Thriller of the Month, John Dugdale
This is a brilliantly sharp and intelligent thriller. Hawley has written four previous novels. If they're anything like this I'll be reading them all.
Evening Standard
A compelling combination of domestic drama and conspiracy puzzler.
Mark Lawson, Guardian
[A] Literary thriller of genius.
India Knight
He has an intuitive understanding of human behaviour and an instinctive grasp of plot that make him a master storyteller
Hannah Beckerman, Guardian
A suspense story full of red herrings and tension
Woman & Home
Fast, compelling, gripping
William Leith, Evening Standard
It's a compassionate, insightful novel, as rich thematically as it is narratively, compelling... Hawley explores the discord between fame and reality, and the extent to which the media distorts the truth, themes that couldn't be more relevant in Trump's America
Hannah Beckerman, Observer
Hawley combines a thriller's tight structure and addictive narrative with characterisation and thematic richness reminiscent of Jonathan Franzen
The Sunday Times, Pick of the Paperbacks