The Loney: the contemporary classic

by Andrew Michael Hurley

WINNER OF THE 2015 COSTA FIRST NOVEL AWARD

THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2016

'Modern classics in this genre are rare, and instant ones even rarer; The Loney, however, looks as though it may be both' Sunday Telegraph

If it had another name, I never knew, but the locals called it the Loney - that strange nowhere between the Wyre and the Lune where Hanny and I went every Easter time with Mummer, Farther, Mr and Mrs Belderboss and Father Wilfred, the parish priest.

It was impossible to truly know the place. It changed with each influx and retreat, and the neap tides would reveal the skeletons of those who thought they could escape its insidious currents. No one ever went near the water. No one apart from us, that is.

I suppose I always knew that what happened there wouldn't stay hidden for ever, no matter how much I wanted it to. No matter how hard I tried to forget . . .

• ISBN10: 1473619823
• ISBN13: 9781473619821
• Publish Date: 27 August 2015 (first published 1 October 2014)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 3 August 2016
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: John Murray Press
• Imprint: John Murray Publishers Ltd
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 368
• Language: English

Reviews

[payton]

I liked the concept, a sinister murder in a place where many a thing went unspoken. Tha had spent two thirds of the book getting up to what I assume the twist that was mentioned. It was boring, honestly. I wanted to like it, picked it up because it peaked my interest, but it didn't do much for me. I wanted more mystery, more unspoken things in this strange place. I received little of that, just a conservative town that did not speak of those who tried to fight the tide.