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S&S snares Candlish's 'knock-out' thriller
Simon & Schuster has scooped Louise Candlish’s The Only Suspect, a thriller set in 1990s London and the present day suburbs.
Managing director of the adult fiction division Suzanne Baboneau struck a deal with Sheila Crowley of Curtis Brown for UK and Commonwealth rights, including audio. The Only Suspect will publish on 2nd February 2023.
The Only Suspect follows Alex Parker, who lives a comfortable life with his wife Beth in the leafy suburb of Silver Vale. "He’s an easy-going husband and a low-profile neighbour – until Beth announces there’s to be a new nature trail on the site of a local disused railway line," the synopsis reads. "As the landscapers get to work, a secret threatens to surface from the hot, hedonistic summer of 1995, when Alex met the seductive Marina and found himself embroiled in a police manhunt that gripped the city."
Baboneau said: "With The Only Suspect, Louise has surpassed herself. She has a wonderful gift for weaving utterly compelling plots and devising knock-out twists that even the most eagle-eyed of readers won’t see coming. Her protagonist, Alex, is like a modern-day Ripley, beguiling and exquisitely portrayed. This is a major publication for us next February and we’ll be pulling out all the stops."
Candlish is the author of the Sunday Times number one bestseller Our House (S&S), which was the winner of the 2019 British Book Awards Crime & Thriller Book of the Year and is now a four-part ITV drama starring Martin Compston and Tuppence Middleton. The Other Passenger (S&S) was a Richard & Judy Book Club pick and was longlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award 2021. Several of her titles are now in development for the screen.
"I’m thrilled that Suzanne and the team at S&S will be publishing The Only Suspect," Candlish said. "It was such a joy to write. The Nineties is one of those ’if you remember it, you really weren’t there’ decades, but Alex remembers it all too well — I can’t wait for readers to uncover his secrets."
