Description

‘Melding modern mystery with fairy tale truths, this engrossing gothic crime novel is a thrilling, lyrical triumph’ Love Reading, Star Book pick.

From Bonnie Burke-Patel, author of I Died at Fallow Hall, shortlisted for the 2025 Betty Trask Award, CWA Gold Dagger, and the Theakstons Old Peculier McDermid Debut Award.

Adam Conlan has made a new life for himself in Morrow-on-Sea. After a wild youth, the goldsmith had settled down, determined to be around for his young son. But now Ophelia Richards appears at his studio door, asking if he will buy her gold. The writer entices and unsettles him; he sees she is adrift in the same cold pain and loneliness as he is.

At the same time, faces begin appearing at the studio window, an unwelcome gift arrives in the post, gold goes missing.

Then comes death, then comes Detective Inspector William Kent.

Woven through with Morrow’s fairy tales, Dead as Gold is a modern gothic crime novel veined with love, violence, family, and desire. Humans still use fairy tales to explore their deepest truths. So who is a wolf, and who is a sparrow?

Publisher Review

‘A modern fairytale, DEAD AS GOLD is a beautiful novel with characters that stayed with me long after I’d turned the last page. The story unfolds at a thrilling pace, and the fairytales are expertly interwoven throughout. A hugely satisfying as well as moving read’ Lucy Ashe ‘Evocative, enthralling, and packed with twists that will make you gasp. Dead as Gold is storytelling at its very best’ Kerry Downes, author of That Time Everything Was On Fire ‘I loved this poetic, haunting whodunnit, which starts with a single crime, a theft, that fractures like a cracked mirror, implicating the haunted characters reflected in it. Bonnie Burke Patel has captured the melancholic air of the ailing off-season seaside town and spun a contemplative, mesmerising net with it. The eerie, off-kilter fairytales woven throughout reveal and conceal layers of the enigmatic characters with unsettling effect. Burke Patel’s idiosyncratic chapterless prose is utterly exquisite. A rare ‘autobuy’ author for me; having been enraptured by her first two novels, I will now read whatever she writes next’ Emma van Straaten, author of This Immaculate Body