UNCOVER THE VERY BEST IN CRIME AND THRILLER WRITING
‘A modern equivalent of James Ellroy’s Los Angeles of the 1950s, a discordant symphony of violence and human weakness’ Publishers Weekly
‘Cleave uses words like lethal weapons’ New York Times Book Review
Fast-paced, dark, and intensely clever, this exciting thriller represents a brilliant new chapter in the career of world-class crime writer Paul Cleave.
Theodore Tate never forgot his first crime scene – ten-year-old Jessica found dead in “the Laughterhouse,” an old abandoned slaughterhouse with the S painted over. The killer was found and arrested. Justice was served. Or was it?
Fifteen years later, a new killer arrives in Christchurch, and he has a list of people who were involved in Jessica’s murder case, one of whom is the unfortunate Dr. Stanton, a man with three young girls. If Tate is going to help them, he has to find the connection between the killer, the Laughterhouse, and the city’s suddenly growing murder rate. And he needs to figure it out fast, because Stanton and his daughters have been kidnapped, and the doctor is being forced to make an impossible decision: which one of his daughters is to die first.
‘Cleave uses words like lethal weapons’ New York Times Book Review
Fast-paced, dark, and intensely clever, this exciting thriller represents a brilliant new chapter in the career of world-class crime writer Paul Cleave.
Theodore Tate never forgot his first crime scene – ten-year-old Jessica found dead in “the Laughterhouse,” an old abandoned slaughterhouse with the S painted over. The killer was found and arrested. Justice was served. Or was it?
Fifteen years later, a new killer arrives in Christchurch, and he has a list of people who were involved in Jessica’s murder case, one of whom is the unfortunate Dr. Stanton, a man with three young girls. If Tate is going to help them, he has to find the connection between the killer, the Laughterhouse, and the city’s suddenly growing murder rate. And he needs to figure it out fast, because Stanton and his daughters have been kidnapped, and the doctor is being forced to make an impossible decision: which one of his daughters is to die first.
Newsletter Signup
By clicking ‘Sign Up,’ I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
Reviews
An intense adrenalin rush from start to finish, I read The Laughterhouse in one sitting. It'll have you up all night. Fantastic!
This dark, gripping thriller, the latest in the Tate saga, is as hardboiled as it gets. The surprise ending suspends all disbelief. Like a TV series that ends its season on a cliff hanger, you won't want to wait until next year. This will leave the reader clamoring for the next book in the series
Piano wire-taut plotting, Tate's heart-wrenching losses and forlorn hopes, and Cleave's unusually perceptive gaze into the maw of a killer's madness make this a standout chapter in his detective's rocky road to redemption
Cleave's horrific narrative takes no prisoners, with the bloody action relentlessly ricocheting around Christchurch at a pace that leaves the detectives near collapse ... An intense and bloody noir thriller, one often descending into a violent abyss reminiscent of Thomas Harris, creator of Hannibal Lecter
A wonderful book ... The final effect is that tingling in the neck hairs that tells us an artist is at work