Client details
Nicci French
| Simon Trewin | Associate Agent: Ariella Feiner |
| Sarah Ballard | Assistant: Lara Hughes-Young |
Nicci French is the husband and wife team of journalist Nicci Gerrard and writer Sean French. They write seamless novels while pursuing their own writing careers, and raising a family of four young children in Suffolk. Their novels include THE MEMORY GAME, THE SAFE HOUSE, KILLING ME SOFTLY, BENEATH THE SKIN and THE RED ROOM. For more information about Nicci French please visit their website at www.niccifrench.co.uk. Latest Publication: BLUE MONDAY, Penguin, 23rd June 2011: Monday, the lowest point of the week. A day of dark impulses. A day to snatch a child from the streets … The abduction of five-year-old Matthew Farraday provokes national outcry and a desperate police hunt. And when his face is splashed over the newspapers, psychotherapist Frieda Klein is left troubled: one of her patients has been relating dreams in which he has a hunger for a child. A child he can describe in perfect detail, a child the spitting image of Matthew. Detective Chief Inspector Karlsson doesn’t take Frieda’s concerns seriously until a link emerges with an unsolved abduction twenty years ago and he summons Frieda to interview the victim’s sister, hoping she can stir hidden memories. Before long, Frieda is at the centre of the race to track the kidnapper. But her race isn’t physical. She must chase down the darkest paths of a psychopath’s mind to find the answers to Matthew Farraday’s whereabouts. And sometimes the mind is the deadliest place to lose yourself. “Brilliantly crafted new crime series” Mirror "Frieda has all the hallmarks of a classic Nicci French character, but when one of her patients reveals fantasies that tie in with a child abduction case that is dominating the headlines, she ends up coming to the police's aid rather than vice versa. The plot is drum-tight, the premise is chilling and the twist is infuriatingly good. Its only flaw is the wait for the follow up. " The Independent Summer Holiday Pick “Tale full of dark psychology and tension…there’s no denying how commanding this first entry is.” Barry Forshaw, Express "[Nicci and Sean French]are old hands at creating troubled, vivid, complex female leads, and Klein is no exception...Nicci French is undeniably at the top of British psychological suspense writing, expert in the unguessable twist, supremely skilled at ratcheting up the tension." The Observer "With it's brooding atmosphere, sustained suspense, last-minute plot twist, and memorable cast of characters, this series debut will leave readers eager to discover what colour Tuesday will be." Publisher's Weekly “Chilling…a novel that will have you on the edge of your seat” Woman and Home “This book is extraordinary - it has the best cliff-hanger ending ever ever ever” Alex Heminsley, 6music “This is a tense thriller with a troubled female psychotherapist at the helm...both a frightening and gripping read.” Easy Living “Gripping thriller – this heart-stoppingly good tale sets the bar high for the next seven books – we can’t wait to read them!” Good Housekeeping "Their portrayal of the city, in all its glorious greyness, is magnificent." Evening Standard "The splendid Frieda Klein…the suspects and low-life characters are all beautifully done, and there’s a strong supporting cast…I was an avid reader of the Nicci French thrillers and this new venture has me hooked already” Readers Digest |
| Publication Details | Notes |
|---|---|
| COMPLICIT 2010 Penguin | Who is more dangerous? An enemy? A friend? Or a lover? Bonnie Graham is standing in her friend’s flat. She is alone, except for the dead body lying in a pool of blood on the floor. What happened? What will she do? And what role has she played in the murderous events? Bonnie is a music teacher who has spent a long, hot summer in London rehearsing with a band to play at a wedding. It was supposed to be fun, but the band members find the complicated knots of their friendships unravelling as the days themselves unwind. What was meant to be a summer of happiness, love and music turns deadly as lovers betray one another, passions turn murderous and friendship itself becomes a crime. Everyone tells lies. But is anyone prepared to tell the truth to uncover a murderer? |
| WHAT TO DO WHEN SOMEONE DIES 2009 Penguin | It's devastating to hear that your husband has died in a horrific car accident. But to learn that he died with a mystery woman as his passenger is torment. Was Greg having an affair? Drowning in grief, Ellie clings to Greg's innocence, and her determination to prove it to the world at large means she must find out who Milena Livingstone was and what she was doing in Greg's car. But in the process those around her begin to question her sanity ... and her motive. And the louder she shouts that Greg might have been murdered, the more suspicion falls on Ellie herself. |
| UNTIL IT'S OVER 2008 Penguin | Young and athletic, London cycle courier Astrid Bell is bad luck -- for other people. First Astrid’s neighbour Peggy Farrell accidentally knocks her off her bike and not long after is found bludgeoned to death. Then a few days later, Astrid is asked to pick up a package from a wealthy woman called Ingrid de Soto, only to find the client murdered in the hall of her luxurious home. For the police it’s more than coincidence. For Astrid and her six housemates it’s the beginning of a nightmare: suspicious glances, bitter accusations, fallings out and a growing fear that the worst is yet to come... Because if it’s true that bad luck comes in threes -- who will be the next to die? |
| LOSING YOU 2008 Penguin | Nina Landry is supposed to be taking her two children on a Christmas holiday today. But the road away from Sandling Island seems littered with obstacles. Most pressing of all, her fifteen-year-old daughter, Charlie, has yet to return from a night out...Minute by minute, Nina's unease builds to worry and then panic. Has Charlie run away? Or has something more sinister happened to her? And why will nobody take her disappearance seriously? As a series of half-buried secrets leads Nina from sickening suspicion to deadly certainty, the question becomes less whether she and her daughter will leave the island for Christmas - and more whether they'll ever leave it again. |
| CATCH ME WHEN I FALL 2005 Penguin | Holly Krauss lives life in the fast lane. A successful young businesswoman with a stable home life, she is loved and admired by all who meet her. But that's only one side of Holly. The other sees her take regular walks on the wild side - where she makes evermore reckless mistakes. And when those mistakes start mounting up, the two sides of Holly blur together and her life quickly spirals out of control. She thinks she's being stalked, someone is demanding money from her - threats lurk around every corner and those closest to Holly are running out of patience. But is she alone responsible for what`s happening? Are her fears just the paranoia of an illness - or intimations of very real danger? And if she can no longer rely on her own judgement, who can she trust to catch her when she falls? |
| SECRET SMILE 2004 Penguin | When Miranda Cotton returns from work to find her new boyfriend, Brendan, reading her diary, she ends the relationship and throws him out of her flat. Getting Brendan out of her life, however, is not so easy. Two weeks later her sister, Kerry, phones her in ecstasy. She's in love. She has a new boyfriend. He`s called Brendan... So Brendan is back in Miranda's life - with a vengeance. But why has he done this? And what does he want from her? Soon what began as an embarrassment turns into an infestation - and then becomes more terrifying than her worst nightmares.... |
| THE RED ROOM 2001 Penguin | Kit Quinn is a young woman who inhabits dangerous worlds: crime scenes, interrogation scenes, hospitals for the criminally insane. Horribly wounded in an attack by a suspect, she must return to the site of her worst fears. She is asked by the policeto advise them on a simple murder inquiry. A young runaway has been found killed by a canal and the chief suspect is the man who wounded Kit. But Kit refuses to accept appearances and her obsessive search for the truth draws her into an underworld of the missing and the unloved which puts her at terrible risk. |
| BENEATH THE SKIN 2000 Penguin | One day you receive an anonymous note informing you that you're going to be killed. It might be a cruel joke or a hoax. But it isn't. What do you do? Three women - Zoe, Jenny and Nadia - of different ages, from different walks of life, rich, poor, married, single, happy, sad, face the same terrible threat. Three lives are turned upside down, secrets are exposed, relationships strained and shattered. And amid all the fear and threats, victims find themselves becoming the accused as the policesearch for what they have done, where they have been, to attract the unrelenting attention of someone who wants to kill them. And finally each of them must face one cruel question: which is stronger, the desire to live or the desire to kill? |
| KILLING ME SOFTLY 2000 Penguin | You have everything. But you give it up for an affair. You're in passionate love. And grave danger... Alice Loudon couldn't resist abandoning her old, safe life for a wild affair. And in Adam Tallis, a rugged mountaineer with a murky past, she finds a man who can teach her things about herself that she never even suspected. But sexual obsession has its dark side, and so does Adam. Soon both are threatening all that Alice has left. First her sanity. Then her life. |
| THE SAFE HOUSE 1998 Penguin | You open your home and your heart to a victim. But your house is anything but safe... Samantha Laschen is a doctor specialising in post-traumatic stress disorder. She's moved to the coast to escape her problems and to be alone with her young daughter. But now the police want her to take in Fiona Mackenzie, a girl whose parents have been savagely murdered. Yet by allowing Fiona in, Sam is exposing herself - and her daughter - to risks she couldn't possibly have imagined... |
| THE MEMORY GAME 1998 Penguin | You remember an idyllic childhood. But your memory is deceitful. And possibly deadly... When a skeleton is unearthed in the Martellos' garden, Jane Martello is shocked to learn it's that of her childhood friend, Natalie, who went missing twenty-five years ago. Encouraged by a therapist to recover lost memories, Jane hopes to find out what really took place when she was a child - and what happened to Natalie. But in learning the truth about hers and Natalie's past, is Jane putting her own future at terrible risk? |
| LAND OF THE LIVING 2003 Penguin | Abbie Devereaux wakes in the dark. She is hooded and bound, with no idea where she is or how she got there. A man she never sees keeps her alive, and his only promise is that he will eventually kill her. |
