Publishers Weekly
★ 11/20/2023
Near-future thrillers don’t come much better than this stellar effort from Murray (The Last Day). Painter Ben Parr lives in an unnamed nation whose monarchy and wildlife are in decline due in part to the changing climate. His fiancée, Cara Sharpe, has escaped the decaying city where she and Ben live for a private island community called Sanctuary Rock, which is owned and managed by Sir John Pemberley. Cara’s letters to Ben, which have grown more and more emotionally distant during her stay, hint at “critical work” being conducted at Sanctuary Rock. When Cara fails to return home as planned, she writes to Ben that she will be staying on the island indefinitely to help Pemberley with his “mission.” Alarmed, Ben sets out to retrieve her. When he reaches Sanctuary Rock, however, Cara isn’t there, and Ben starts to suspect that she’s been recruited for something horrifying. Murray excels at building a believable futuristic environment without getting bogged down in minutiae, and he wrings plenty of suspense out of Ben’s increasingly harrowing investigation of Sanctuary Rock’s mysterious purpose. This fires on all cylinders. Agent: Kimberly Witherspoon, InkWell Management. (Jan.)
stand-up comedian and writer Richard Herring
A really great book. I was rapt with it and it was so tense, and as a reader you’re trying to work out what the hell is going on.”
Lee Child
Wonderful: boldly imagined and beautifully written—the best future-shock thriller for years.”
New York Times bestselling author Anthony Horowitz
Imaginative and intriguing. The Sanctuary sucks you in and doesn’t let you leave until the very last page—and a final revelation that left me thinking late into the night. Andrew Hunter Murray is a young writer to watch.”
The Times (London)
Literary touchstones include H. G. Wells’s The Island of Doctor Moreau and, of course, Shakespeare’s The Tempest (Pemberley’s daughter, Bianca, makes a superbly compromised Miranda). The plot is about eco-Nazis, obviously, but the considerable pleasure of this novel is in the getting from here to there.”
Crime Time FM Paul Burke
A disturbing and atmospheric dystopian novel, rich in imagination and stylishly written. I was totally immersed in this story that has themes around climate change and the future of humanity on a decaying planet. Totally absorbing.”
Harlan Coben
A stunningly original thriller set in the world of tomorrow that will make you think about what’s happening today.”
radio and television presenter Zoe Ball
Absolutely brilliant. I’m thinking it should be made into a movie!”
Radio Times (London)
There is a pang of generational angst at the heart of the book—a sense that the younger generation have been excluded from the ordinary society-building that their parents’ generation took for granted, and that…there might be somewhere they could go and start afresh and belong. Unfortunately, unless you are a billionaire or fancy drinking the Kool-Aid, there really isn’t—so put your feet up and escape with this book instead.”
The Guardian (London)
This is a smoothly written, thought-provoking tale about aging societies and wealth inequality, with an effective shocker of an ending.”
Sunday Times (London) bestselling author Tim Harford
Gripping, unsettling, and original.”
Daily Mail (London)
Murray’s disturbing eco-thriller keeps its readers spellbound until the final chilling twist.”
Pop Science Books
A thoughtful, impressive science fiction thriller.”
New York Times bestselling author Richard Osman
A brilliantly clever thriller by a brilliantly clever author.”
Stephen Fry
Its intelligence and bravura characterization will have you turning page after page. A fabulous achievement.”
#1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Child
Wonderful: boldly imagined and beautifully written—the best future-shock thriller for years.”
#1 New York Times bestselling author Harlan Coben
A stunningly original thriller set in the world of tomorrow that will make you think about what’s happening today.”
Kirkus Reviews
2023-10-20
An island thrives on a planet in crisis.
The world is slowly dying. One species after another is becoming extinct, and the last elephant has died. In this cheery world, portraitist Ben Parr is engaged to Cara Sharpe, who’s currently working on Sanctuary Rock, an island off the mainland. He earns his living by painting portraits of folks in wealthy enclaves called Villages—whenever he’d drive away from them, “the aura of money disappeared from the land, ray by ray.” But on the island is the ultimate Village, secretive and exclusive. Ben and Cara regularly exchange letters until she writes that she’s not coming back. Well, this is no good. Cara and his painting are Ben’s whole life, so he decides to go get her from this island to which no ferries go. He borrows a boat and nearly kills himself in the crossing, a brave act for one who says that “cowardice always was a weed scattered through the underbrush of my character.” A clinic cares for his wounds and asks who he is because he doesn’t belong there. He meets the super-wealthy Sir John Pemberley—just John, please—the man in charge. The island is almost completely disconnected from the mainland and will soon cut the final cord. Then they expect to survive and thrive while the rest of the world does neither. But all Ben really wants is to find Cara. Where is she? And what’s really happening on the island? Why is everyone so young? How did they eliminate rats, thus allowing seafowl to flourish again? The interesting answer matters more than just to birds. Ben is loaded with angst, but he paints and writes well, occasionally using curious words like rejectamenta and rugose. Will he ever find Cara—alive? One false note: “The very worst acts in history have been committed by men acting for the good.” Oh, really? Like Auschwitz?
A suspenseful read with a dystopian theme.
