Description

“A gripping and gloriously treacherous thriller without guide ropes or safety nets. Leave all certainties by the door.” Frances Hardinge

A taut thriller about murder, maths and the mind. Peter Blankman is afraid of everything and must confront unimaginable terror when his mother is attacked.

Seventeen-year-old Peter Blankman is a maths prodigy. He also suffers from severe panic attacks. Afraid of everything, he finds solace in the orderly and logical world of mathematics and in the love of his family: his scientist mum and his tough twin sister Bel, as well as Ingrid, his only friend. However, when his mother is found stabbed before an award ceremony and his sister is nowhere to be found, Pete is dragged into a world of espionage and violence where state and family secrets intertwine. Armed only with his extraordinary analytical skills, Peter may just discover that his biggest weakness is his greatest strength.

Publisher Review

"A gripping and gloriously treacherous thriller without guide ropes or safety nets. Leave all certainties by the door." * Frances Hardinge, Costa-award-winning author of The Lie Tree * Dazzling. It's as though Escher and Schroedinger had collaborated on a thriller. * M. R. Carey, author of The Girl With All The Gifts * "The web of deception grows more tangled with each page." * The Daily Mail * "This novel has been compared to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, but it is unlike anything else you have read... This book does more than a synopsis can suggest: it is revelatory about mental health, ingeniously constructed and a thrilling ride for sophisticated readers." * Children's Book of the Week in The Sunday Times * "In this dark and twisted thriller, nothing is what it seems; but Pollock's greatest triumph is the portrait of a psyche at war with itself." * The Guardian *