The Next to Die (Zailer & Waterhouse Series #10)

by Sophie Hannah

Overview

The New York Times bestselling author of The Monogram Murders and Woman with a Secret returns with a disturbing tale of psychological suspense and obsession that hits at the heart of some of our most precious relationships.

What if having a best friend could put you in the crosshairs of a killer?

A psychopath the police have dubbed “Billy Dead Mates” is targeting pairs of best friends, and killing them one by one. Before they die, each victim is given a small white book.

For months, detectives have failed to catch Billy, or figure out what the white books symbolize and why the killer leaves them behind. The police are on edge; the public in a panic. Then a woman, scared by what she’s seen on the news, comes forward. What she reveals shocks the investigators and adds another troubling layer to an already complex case.

Stand-up comedian Kim Tribbeck has one of Billy’s peculiar little books. A stranger gave it to her at a gig she did last year. Was the stranger Billy, and is he targeting her—or is it something more nefarious? Kim has no friends and trusts no one, so how—and why—could Billy Dead Mates want to target her? If it’s not her, then who will be the next to die?

Sophie Hannah raises the stakes with each successive page in this haunting and twisting thriller that reaffirms her place as one of today’s most talented suspense writers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062388360
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	11/19/2019
Series:	Zailer & Waterhouse Series , #10
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	1,112,660
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.80(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

SOPHIE HANNAH is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous psychological thrillers, which have been published in 51 countries and adapted for television, as well as The Monogram Murders, the first Hercule Poirot novel authorized by the estate of Agatha Christie, and its sequels Closed Casket, The Mystery of Three Quarters, and The Killings at Kingfisher Hill. Sophie is also the author of a self-help book, How to Hold a Grudge, and hosts the podcast of the same name. She lives in Cambridge, UK.

Editorial Reviews

12/10/2018

In this underwhelming standalone from bestseller Hannah (The Mystery of Three Quarters and two other Hercule Poirot pastiches), a team of British Major Crimes officers, who spend more time sniping at each other than investigating, search for serial killer Billy Dead Mates, so-named because his four victims consist of two pairs of best friends. In the weeks before their deaths, the three women and one man murdered by Billy Dead Mates each found a small white book, with a blank cover and a few handwritten words inside, in her or his possession. Meanwhile, British comedian and author Kim Tribbeck, an obnoxious narcissist, inserts herself into the case. Kim even insists that her strict rules for interviews, which include specifications for exact punctuality and having a “packet of pickled-onion-flavored Monster Munch crisps” on hand, apply when she comes in to help the police with their inquiries. The unsatisfying ultimate reveal will only add to the disappointment of fans of Hannah’s much better efforts. Those looking for an offbeat, comic police procedural will do better with Lynne Truss’s A Shot in the Dark. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

2018-11-12

A task force of police officers from across England struggles to apprehend the killer they've imprudently dubbed "Billy Dead Mates."

The nickname, mercilessly ridiculed by feminist Lifeworld columnist Sondra Halliday, stems from the fact that the first two shooting victims, Linzi Birrell and Rhian Douglas, were best friends. So were the next two, Angela McCabe and Joshua Norbury. Shortly before getting murdered, each victim received a little white notebook whose pages were blank except for a single line from a poem by an American writer. As DI Gilles Proust and DC Simon Waterhouse of the Culver Valley Police work with their counterparts from Bournemouth and Poole and the London Metropolitan Police to identify Billy, comedian Kim Tribbeck, already stressed out by her long-estranged grandmother's drawn-out demise in Rawndesley Hospital, has an alarming recollection: Somewhere, sometime during her most recent circuit of stand-up performances, someone slipped her a little white notebook as well. When she reports the matter to the police, she's chagrined to find her own most urgent question (who's planning to kill me?) humiliatingly transformed by them (since she received the notebook at least a few weeks ago, why hasn't she been killed yet, and who's the best friend who's slated to be killed along with her?). Under every rock Proust, Waterhouse, and DC Chris Gibbs turn over, they find fresh suspects, from Kim's ex-lover Liam Sturridge to Marjolein Baillie, the self-styled Ishaya of Bright Path (don't ask). While Sondra Halliday loudly insists that the crimes are nothing more or less than femicide, Kim's transgressive, tightrope-walking wit provides a welcome fulcrum between the extravagantly inventive mystery and the unrelenting exploration of even minor characters' psychology.

Hannah (Keep Her Safe, 2017, etc.) strews clues and complications with such prodigal abandon that even readers who rub their eyes in disbelief at her solution will be impressed by the range and weight of her impassioned plotting.

Kirkus Reviews