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Mo Hayder's 'brilliant' final book coming from Hodder
Hodder & Stoughton will publish Bonehead, the final posthumous novel from the international bestselling author Mo Hayder, on 9th May.
Commercial fiction publishing director Phoebe Morgan bought UK and Commonwealth rights from Veronique Baxter at David Higham Associates. Bonehead will feature a foreword from crime writer Karin Slaughter.
Hodder & Stoughton described it as “a gripping crime thriller focusing on the aftermath of a fatal coach crash – and the subsequent visions of a terrifying woman in white”.
The blurb reads: “Alex Mullins knows she is one of the lucky ones. When a coach crash at her school reunion killed several of her classmates, she was saved from a grisly fate. She is haunted by what she thinks she saw that night: a vision of a skeletal woman, known by the locals as the Bonehead – a woman who brings bad luck to all that see her. Now a police officer in Gloucestershire, Alex fights to overcome the past by helping other people. But when her path crosses with someone who was there that fateful night, her new life begins to unravel at the seams.”
Morgan said: “I am so honoured to be publishing Mo’s final novel. This brilliant book has everything you’d expect from her writing, and it deserves to be as beloved by readers as her previous novels. As soon as I read it, I knew we had something special, and I hope this can serve as part of a lasting legacy from one of Britain’s best-loved crime writers.”
The author’s daughter Lotte Hayder said: “Bonehead meant a lot to my mother and I’m so glad it can finally reach a larger audience. Set in familiar locations from my childhood, I feel a personal connection to this thrilling novel. I am so grateful that Hodder are publishing it. It allows her voice to continue resonating, and her story to endure.”
Hayder, also known as Clare Dunkel, died of motor neurone disease in July 2021, aged 59. She had left school at 15 and went on to write 11 crime novels. Two of her books, The Treatment and Ritual, have been made into films and her novel Wolf (all published by Bantam Press), nominated for Best Novel in the 2015 Edgar Awards, has recently been adapted for the BBC.
Prior to her diagnosis with MND in December 2020, she had completed The Book of Sand and the first drafts of three more books in a series of speculative fiction.
