Ian Parkinson was born in Lancashire in 1978 and studied philosophy at university before working as a civil servant and insurance clerk. His first novel, The Beginning of the End, was published in 2015.

This is a weird, wonderful, troubling concoction of a novel that is utterly compelling. It is hard not to fall on the old page-turner cliché but you really do want to know what happens next and where the story is going. Sometimes it requires the broadest of broad minds. It is an excellent piece of work and I recommend it for originality and freshness and for Ian Parkinson’s talent for making disturbing material so enjoyable.