Journalist Simon Caldwell’s debut novel The Beast of Bethulia Park might just be the most believable thriller on our shelves this year.
We first meet prematurely jaded young journalist Jenny Bradshaigh as she reports on the death of an elderly man, whose family suspect foul play by hospital staff. Readers will know that her opening complaints about trading Westminster for Wigan for matters of the heart have sounded the death knell for her impending marriage – even if she doesn’t yet. Her act of honesty in the book’s closing pages brings her story full circle where other authors would allow her the short-term luxury of deceit, or even glamorise her wrongdoing.
