HAVOC
The New York Times‘ #1 Thriller of 2024
‘Highly readable, twisty and shrewd’ HANYA YANAGIHARA (on Instagram), author of A Little Life
‘Atmospheric, diabolical fun’ LUCY FOLEY, author of The Midnight Feast
‘The most disturbingly enjoyable read’ EMMA HEALEY, author of Elizabeth is Missing
‘A taut, wicked masterpiece’ MONA AWAD, author of Bunny
Eighty-one-year-old Maggie Burkhardt has left it all behind and spent the last five years ping-ponging between the world’s luxury hotels.
Now she has finally come to rest somewhere she can imagine staying forever: the Royal Karnak Hotel in Luxor, Egypt.
Maggie is no sweet old lady. She has a nasty, nosy little habit: she spies on her fellow guests and manipulates situations to ‘liberate’ them from what she sees as unhappy relationships.
When an eight-year-old boy, Otto, and his well-meaning mother arrive at the hotel, Maggie sees two easy targets. But she is more wrong than she could possibly know, and is soon locked in a death-spiral with Otto – has she finally met her match in a child one-tenth her age?
Crackling with the perceptive acid wit of The White Lotus and haloed by Shirley Jackson’s cruel, dark magic, Christopher Bollen’s new novel is a decadent and ghastly delight.
Early readers are saying…
‘Absolutely brilliant and insane. I went in knowing very little about the book and I’m glad because it made it even more of a wild ride’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘I loved this book from the first page… The conflict between the old and the young in this cat and mouse tussle is brilliant. It’s a hard to put down novel and has a great twist at the end’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘I had an absolute blast reading this. Otto and Maggie are wild characters and their behavior is shocking!’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐
A deliciously nasty tale of resentment and revenge … Listening her describe her strange habits and her wacky opinions of other people is great, wicked fun … Bollen writes with wit and style about an increasingly unhinged battle of wills between two unlikely, and formidable, opponents -
”A masterclass in menace ” - this is atmospheric, diabolical fun with two utterly unforgettable antagonists. Not since Agatha Christie has anyone so convincingly put the case for the potential villainy of the very old and very young
A lot of books claim to be Highsmithian, but this one actually is: A highly readable, twisty, and shrewd satire presenting as a thriller about entitlement, loneliness, jealousy, and the eternal friction between the young and old. Utterly enjoyable -
Diabolically good. Gets you in its mad, twisted grip and doesn’t relinquish until the jaw-dropping end. Bollen is a stunning writer and Havoc is a taut, wicked masterpiece -
It’s the most disturbingly enjoyable read I’ve had in a long time! The ratcheting tension was almost unbearable, but it was so funny too, and I was rooting for the appalling Maggie despite myself -
Delicious, wicked, and utterly brilliant - a novel about age and power, a battle between two ruthless and fascinating minds. It sank its teeth into me from the first page, and didn’t let go -
Christopher Bollen has been a growing figure in the literary suspense world for a while, but this book should cement his place as one of the very best -
Bollen writes acat-and-mouse psychological thriller set in a sprawling hotel located on the banks of the Nile. The cat might be 81-year-old widow Maggie Burkhardt, a meddlesome fixer. The mouse might be eight-year-old Otto, son of the mournful Tessa. Or it might be the other way around. -
An octogenarian Wisconsin widow faces off against an eight-year-old troublemaker in this first-rate tale of psychological suspense…. each of whom is refreshingly drawn against type….the mayhem mounts and the plot careens toward a genuinely shocking climax….Enriching the narrative with an evocative sense of atmosphere and playful riffs on The Bad Seed and Agatha Christie, Bollen serves up a nasty treat. It’s a bracing ode to bad behavior. -
Lyrically written, with sharp, candid wit, this is a fresh, strange pleasure of a book -
This destination thriller is perfect for White Lotus fans -
Bollen anticipated the White Lotus craze with a series of thrillers in fantasy travel destinations… Bollen gleefully lays on the melodrama and teases out the unmasking of his very unreliable narrator, escalating to a cymbal-crashing finale of revelations and violence -