FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
“An absorbing mystery, an extraordinarily powerful evocation of time and place and a cast of characters whose every breath feels real — Unsworth gets better with every book.”
— Guardian
“A writer of rare talent . . . Demonstrating once again a fine sense of place and period, Unsworth creates a gripping tale of adolescent angst and genuine evil.”
— Sunday Telegraph
“A worthy showcase for the author’s undeniable skill.” — Publisher’s Weekly, starred review
Named one of the Best Crime Books of the Year by the Guardian, Weirdo is an atmospheric thriller about a teenage girl convicted of murder in a 1980s seaside town and the private investigator who reopens the case to discover that she may not have acted alone . . .
WEIRDO
By: Cathi Unsworth
Corinne Woodrow was fifteen when she was convicted of murdering one of her classmates on a summer’s evening in 1984, a year when the teenagers of Ernemouth ran wild, dressing in black and staying out all night, listening to music that terrified their parents.
Twenty years later, new forensic evidence suggests that Corinne didn’t act alone. Private investigator Sean Ward — whose promising career as a detective with the Metropolitan Police was cut short by a teenage gangster with a gun — reopens the case, and discovers a town full of secrets, and a community that has always looked after its own.
Building on themes laid out in Stieg Larson’s acclaimed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Weirdo examines the role of the female transgressors, and how — worldwide — these women are frequently more vilified than men. Unsworth offers a fresh exploration on a subject that Stieg Larson brought to the forefront of crime fiction. Additionally, Unsworth’s portrayal of teenage life, “being different,” and Goth culture will resonant with anyone who felt like an outsider in high school while her detailed pop culture and music references will teleport readers back to the 1980s.
About the Author:
Cathi Unsworth began a career in journalism at nineteen and has since worked for many music, arts, film, and alternative lifestyle journals. She has been called “the Queen of Noir” in the United Kingdom and is the author of four novels, including The Singer and Bad Penny Blues,and the editor of the award-winning crime compendium London Noir. She lives in London, England. Find more information on Cathi and her work here: http://www.cathiunsworth.co.uk/
Praise for Weirdo:
The Guardian Best Crime Books of the Year
“She has brilliantly and vividly captured the desperate sense of teenage boredom, isolation, danger, and mayhem . . . An unusually gifted writer of heartfelt noir”
— Mirror
“An outstanding addition to the British crime-writing scene . . . Unsworth’s ability to render the period so vividly makes for an immersive reading experience, and there can scarcely be a better writer of this sort of stuff in the land . . . The psychology of that hormone-hammered adolescence that girls go through can rarely have been so well evoked.”
— Independent on Sunday
“To her brilliant evocation of time and place, Unsworth adds astonishing and disturbing insight into the minds of disaffected youth who cannot find love and acceptance. Terrific.”
— Times
“Unsworth’s plotting is superb but it is her ability to convey a sense of time and place that stands out, and she writes wonderfully about music, too.”
— Daily Telegraph
“Excellent fourth novel from the queen of British punk noir about febrile youth culture.”
— Metro
“Unsworth’s best yet, as sharp as vinegar on chips.”
— Financial Times
“Unsworth’s new novel is a sad, elegiac look at youth, innocence and the things we do to sunder us from our communities. A superb read.”
— Catholic Herald
“Hers is a savage indictment of the depravity of all power and self-interest unrestrained by considerations of morality of empathy . . . An author in full control of her form.”
— Eastern Daily Press