Desert Island Crime with Vanessa Savage
Welcome to Desert Island Crime, where each week a bestselling crime writer reveals their top chilling titles. This week, we ask Vanessa Savage, author of the thrilling Woman In The Dark and The Woods to reveal her top picks.
Vanessa Savage:
How am I meant to only choose eight books?! That really is a crime! It’s possible I’ll end up going down with the ship as I refuse to let go of the other eight million books I want to be stranded with, (it’s also possible those eight million books are the reason the ship sinks in the first place) but if I’m forced to choose, here are eight books I know I’ll enjoy re-reading…
Stephen King – Misery
It was a tough choice from all King’s novels as I love so many, but I’ll go with Misery – a classic psychological thriller with Annie Wilkes as the most terrifying Number One Fan ever…
Stephen King – On Writing
Is it cheating to choose another Stephen King if the second is non-fiction? I’d love to take On Writing; part memoir, part advice, this is my favourite book on the craft of writing.
Diane Setterfield – The 13th Tale
Maybe not strictly a crime novel, I think this gothic tale is crossover enough not to get confiscated by crime fiction customs and I can lose myself once again in the tragic lives of the March family and the disturbing secrets that lie within the ruins of Angelfield House…
Alistair MacLean – Night Without End
This will be my nostalgia read from an author I used to read in my teens – once I’d exhausted everything on my own bookshelves, I started working my way through my dad’s shelves. As I’m on a desert island and might need cooling down, I’ll choose Night Without End, first published in 1959 – a whodunnit set in the Arctic, where a plane crashes close to a remote research station… with a killer amongst the survivors.
Sharon Bolton – Now You See Me
I’m a huge fan of all Sharon Bolton’s books, but some of my favourites are the Lacey Flint series, so I’ll take the first of the four, where DC Lacey Flint becomes involved (for a while as a suspect) in the hunt for a Jack-the-Ripper copycat killer.
Clare Mackintosh – I Let You Go
Set partly in Wales so it will remind me of home when I’m stranded on the island, I Let You Go is one of my favourite contemporary psychological thrillers with THE finest twist.
Arthur Conan Doyle – A Study in Scarlet
I need some classic Sherlock Holmes on the island with me – and I think I’ll take A Study in Scarlet, where Doctor Watson meets Sherlock Holmes for the first time.
Thomas Harris – The Silence of the Lambs
I love this thriller, where FBI trainee Clarice Starling seeks help from notorious psychopath Hannibal Lecter – Lecter is terrifying as he gets inside Clarice’s head while the FBI desperately try to catch serial killer Buffalo Bill.
*** Don't miss the obsessively gripping new thriller from Vanessa Savage - The Night They Vanished is out in ebook and available to pre-order in paperback now***
'Highly recommended' Nuala Ellwood
'Tense and creepy . . . brilliant' Harriet Tyce
'Hooks readers in and keeps them dangling will the very last page' Daily Mail
'Without a doubt the best book I've read this year' Reader Review *****
'Spine-chilling in its intensity, addictive and twisty, this was quite simply an AMAZING read' Reader Review *****
'Utterly addictive and impossible to second guess' Claire Douglas
'Dark and thoroughly compulsive, a definite up-all-nighter' Kate Hamer
'Extremely sinister . . . had me frantically turning the pages' Reader Review *****
'I literally could not put it down' Reader Review *****
'Taut, tense and brilliantly gripping' Simon Lelic
'Immersive and eerie' Heat
_____________________
For Tess, her older sister Bella is her whole world.
She's smart and beautiful and popular - everything Tess isn't - and since the death of their mother it's just been them and their grieving father.
But now a new family has moved into the empty house on the edge of the woods, bringing with them a world of boys and alcohol, and Tess can feel her sister slipping away from her. Until the bodies of two local schoolgirls are found in the woods, and Tess is convinced that this new family has something to hide.
As events threaten to destroy everything they hold dear, Bella and Tess determine to bring the truth to light.
So the two girls go into the woods . . .
