To the Slaughter: First number one in nine years for Karin

Karin Slaughter’s The Good Daughter (HarperCollins) has murdered the competition, selling 20,288 copies for £79,926 to claim the crime author’s first UK Official Top 50 number one spot since March 2009.

It is Slaughter’s second-ever overall place on the top spot since Nielsen BookScan records began in her first book with HarperCollins UK after moving over from Penguin Random House. Though The Good Daughter brings the run of British Book of the Year winner Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (Harper) to an end, HarperCollins claims its eighth week at number one so far this year—a total HC is sure to add to when David Walliams’ The World’s Worst Children 3 is released later this month.

 Adam Kay’s This is Going to Hurt (Picador) spent a fourth consecutive week as the Paperback Non-Fiction number one. With 16,781 copies sold, the junior doctor's memoir has increased in volume every week since its paperback release—albeit by 0.22% last week.  

Both hardback number ones—Henry Firth and Ian Theasby’s BOSH! (HQ) in the Hardback Non-Fiction chart and Kate Mosse’s The Burning Chambers (Mantle) in the Original Fiction line-up—held on from the week before.

Liz Pichon’s Biscuits, Bands and Very Big Plans (Scholastic) leapt 15% in volume week on week, selling 11,295 copies, and swiping the Children’s number one from Sarah J Maas’ A Court of Frost and Starlight (Bloomsbury). This is Pichon’s 16th week as the kids’ number one and, excluding World Book Day titles, is her second-highest volume in the number one position.

The print market struggled against the bank holiday heatwave, with volume dropping 9.4% and value 9.3% week on week to 2.69 million books sold for £22.5m, the second-lowest week so far this year.