Charles Palliser – författare

A gothic tale of deception, murder and mystery set in Victorian England.On a bleak, wintry morning in Victorian England, Dr Ned Courtine arrives in the sleepy cathedral town of Thurchester for a reunion with his former university friend, Austin Fickling. Over 20 years have passed since they last saw each other, and Fickling appears anxious and gaunt, ravaged by a strange, existential guilt. In order to deflect Courtine''s questions from himself, Fickling recounts the story of Thurchester''s ghost, William Burgoyne, once a royalist and treasurer of the cathedral who was murdered in the aftermath of the Civil War. The macabre tale of murder and deception captures Courtine''s imagination, and he finds himself unknowningly drawn into a world of haunting evil. A masterpiece of Victorian suspense as well as a dazzling meditation on human passions, THE UNBURIED is a murder mystery that lingers - even after all has been resolved.

''Rewarding, inventive and enjoyably perplexing'' Sunday TimesA colleague writes an obituary for a fellow scientist and Nobel Prize winner, somewhat relishing his death; a train in the Scottish Highlands takes the wrong track during a snowstorm, resulting in a death, possibly murder; a publisher''s reader reports on a hospital romance novel that bizarrely ends with a gory, Ripper-style murder. Ten apparently separate stories are ingeniously drawn together to form variations on a single theme - obsession with the success of a rival and the plotting of his death.But obsession is an unstable motive for murder, and the game of revenge can turn very sour . . .Betrayals is an ingenious, mesmerising puzzle, intricately pieced together by a master of the art.

From the author of the international bestseller The Quincunx"Palliser’s novel shares some superficial similarities with last year’s Booker winner, Prophet Song – a family in crisis navigating an authoritarian regime – but is a more well developed and satisfying work." —The Guardian

Set in Eastern Europe during the Second World War. When his nation is invaded and occupied by a brutal enemy, a well-intentioned man persuades his wife that they should give temporary shelter to a young girl who is at school with their daughter. He has no idea that the girl belongs to a community against whom the invader intends to commit genocide. Days stretch into weeks and then months while the enemy’s pitiless hatred of the girl’s community puts all of the family in danger. Nobody outside the family can be trusted with the dangerous secret and the threat from outside unlocks a darkness that threatens to derail them all. From the internationally bestselling author of The Quincunx (over a million copies sold worldwide), comes a deeply unsettling psychological novel about the hideous decisions that people are forced to make when living under tyrannical regimes. 

From the author of the international bestseller The Quincunx Set in Eastern Europe during the Second World War. When his nation is invaded and occupied by a brutal enemy, a well-intentioned man persuades his wife that they should give temporary shelter to a young girl who is at school with their daughter. He has no idea that the girl belongs to a community against whom the invader intends to commit genocide. Days stretch into weeks and then months while the enemy’s pitiless hatred of the girl’s community puts all of the family in danger. Nobody outside the family can be trusted with the dangerous secret and the threat from outside unlocks a darkness that threatens to derail them all. From the bestselling author of The Quincunx (over one million copies sold worldwide), comes a deeply unsettling psychological novel about the hideous decisions that people are forced to make when living under tyrannical regimes.