A Spoiler Of Men

Excerpt from A Spoiler of Men As Mr. Cyril Wentworth opened the door of his flat and stepped into the little hall on the other side, he paused. It was past midnight. He had not been home since the morning. There was no one else upon the premises; e

‘A FIERCELY INTELLIGENT PAGE-TURNER’ PAULA HAWKINS ‘WRITTEN PRE-COVID – GRIPPING, SCARY AND PERSUASIVE’ IAN RANKIN ‘THE STUFF THAT CLASSICS ARE MADE OF’ A.J. FINN ‘GRIPPING AND BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN. WHAT A DEBUT!’ SARAH PEARSE, author of The Sanatorium ‘BRILLIANT, PRESCIENT, UNPUTDOWNABLE’ JENNY COLGAN

“Want to read something good?. . . If you like my stuff, you’ll like this.”—Stephen King • WINNER OF THE ITW THRILLER AWARD • WINNER OF THE STRAND MAGAZINE AWARD FOR BEST DEBUT NOVEL A riveting psychological suspense debut that weaves a mystery about a childhood game gone dangerously awry, and will keep readers guessing right up to the shocking ending In 1986, Eddie and his friends are on the verge of adolescence, spending their days biking in search of adventure. The chalk men are their secret code, stick figures they draw for one another as hidden messages. But one morning the friends find a chalk man leading them to the woods. They follow the message, only to find the dead body of a teenage girl. In 2016, Eddie is nursing a drinking problem and trying to forget his past, until one day he gets a letter containing a chalk man—the same one he and his friends saw when they found the body. Soon he learns that all his old friends received the same note. When one of them is killed, Eddie realizes that saving himself means figuring out what happened all those years ago. But digging into the past proves more dangerous than he could have known. Because in this town, everyone has secrets, no one is innocent, and some will do anything to bury the truth. Praise for The Chalk Man “Wonderfully creepy—like a cold blade on the back of your neck.”—Lee Child “An assured debut that alternates between 1986 and 2016 with unpredictable twists. The Chalk Man fits well with other stories about troubled childhoods such as Stephen King’s novella Stand by Me. . . . Tudor never misses a beat in showing each character as both a child and an adult while also exploring the foreboding environs of a small town.”—Associated Press “Utterly hypnotic. The Chalk Man is a dream novel, a book of nightmares: haunted and haunting, shot through with shadow and light—a story to quicken the pulse and freeze the blood. A dark star is born.”—A.J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window “If you can’t get enough of psychological thrillers with sharp twists and turns, you need to read The Chalk Man”—Hello Giggles “I haven’t had a sleepless night due to a book for a long time. The Chalk Man changed that.”—Fiona Barton, New York Times bestselling author of The Widow

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 edition. Excerpt: ...It appeared that his father was particularly anxious that he should master the language colloquially; so was his mother, and his sisters--it would be so very useful when he took them abroad; while he had an uncle who was always preaching that the one indispensable thing for a young man nowadays was a practical knowledge of modern languages. To throw away so excellent a chance of becoming almost as German as the Germans, it was not to be thought of. Moreover, a change would do him good. He was rather run down; he did not say what had run him down, because John Banner had his eye on him, but a change always did do him good, besides enlarging his mind. And, anyhow, they would be away so short a time that he might as well go with them as not. When he had made it quite clear, after some stumbling, why he was going without being invited, Mr. Banner fixed him with his glance. "Then do I understand, Sharratt, that the sole reason why you are favouring us with your company is that you may improve your knowledge of the German language?" Mr. Sharratt seemed uneasy. "I don't know about its being the sole reason, but it's one reason. German's a lot of help to a fellow." "No doubt. Then I presume that you don't propose to speak a word of any other tongue but German from the moment you quit the English shores." "Oh, I say! that's a tall order. As a matter of fact, I only do know three or four words of German, and I'm not sure which they are, and, anyhow, you can't get along very fast with only three." "That's true. Then I take it that you intend to gain at least a nodding acquaintance with the other two or three hundred thousand words during the two or three days that we propose to be away. Dick, your...

From Dathan Auerbach, the author of the horror sensation Penpal, a hauntingly dark novel about a young boy who goes missing, and the brother who won't stop looking for him. Eric disappeared when he was three years old. Ben looked away for only a second at the grocery store, but that was all it took. His brother was gone. Vanished into the sticky air of the Florida Panhandle. Five years later, Ben is still looking for his brother. Still searching, while his stepmother sits and waits and whispers for Eric, refusing to leave the house that Ben's father can no longer afford. Now twenty and desperate for work, Ben takes a job on the night stock crew at the only place that will have him: the store that blinked Eric out of existence. Ben can feel there's something wrong there. With the people. With his boss. With the graffitied baler that shudders and groans and beckons. But he's in the right place. He knows the store has much to show him, so he keeps searching. Except Ben misses the most important thing of all. That he should have stopped looking.