The Shark is a dark, uniquely voice-led crime thriller from Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize-winner Emma Styles.
Every monster has a weakness. At the height of Australian summer, a serial killer dubbed The Shark stalks a beachside suburb, targeting young female swimmers whose bodies are later found on the shoreline.
Disempowered and angry at the failures of the police to protect them, two young women are hell-bent on revenge. Raych has lost someone and will go to any length to discover what happened to her, while Carmen suspects her own disturbing connection to the killer.
Together they form an uneasy alliance and, in a moment that changes the trajectory of their lives, Carmen and Raych abduct and imprison the prime suspect.
Do they think they can save the day, or are their intentions darker? Can they trust one another’s agenda? And when another young woman goes missing, what stops them from going to the police?
The Shark is a propulsive psychological thriller about fear, vengeance and the thin line between predator and victim.
Emma Styles writes contemporary Australian noir about young women taking on the patriarchy. She grew up on Whadjuk Noongar country in Perth, Western Australia and now lives on the Sussex Coast.
Emma loves open water swimming and once sat out a cyclone on the northwest coast of WA in a LandCruiser Troop Carrier. She is less afraid of great white sharks than she should be, and hopeless at surfing.
Emma has an MA in crime fiction from the University of East Anglia. Her debut novel, No Country for Girls, won the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize and the Little, Brown UEA Crime Fiction Award.
It was a New Blood selection at Theakston’s Crime in Harrogate and was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey Dagger, the Davitt Award for Best Adult Crime Novel and the Ned Kelly Award for Best Debut Crime Fiction. The Shark is her second novel.
The Shark is published by Hachette Australia and available from all great book sellers including QBD Books.
Image: The Shark – courtesy of Hachette Australia