On a suburban street filled with secrets, 82 year old Edie Green must look back into the past to discover what happened to her friend Lucy, who went missing years before . . .
Emily Critchley grew up in Essex. She has lived in Brighton and London and now lives in Hertfordshire where she works as a librarian. She has a first class BA in Creative Writing from London Metropolitan University and an MA with distinction in Creative Writing from Birkbeck University of London. Her YA debut Notes on my Family was nominated for the Carnegie, long listed for the Branford Boase, and book of the week in the Sunday Times, and her middle grade novel The Bear who Sailed the Ocean on an Iceberg was published in October 2021, both by independent publisher Everything With Words. One Puzzling Afternoon is her debut adult novel.
'Completely captivating. A real page turner. Eighty-two year old
Edie is a wonderful protagonist, desperate to solve the mystery of
her friend's disappearance sixty years earlier.' - Louise Hare
'Marvellous . . . a special gem of a book, a perfectly executed
double timeline mystery with a twist you don't see coming. One
Puzzling Afternoon has one of the most unusual and endearing
protagonists in recent crime fiction. In this dual time-line novel,
Emily Critchley wonderfully weaves together a modern crime
narrative with the sunny, idyllic childhood memories of her
protagonist. Post-war nostalgia is perfectly evoked - until the
darkness at the edges of Edie's and Lucy's story draws is quickly
like a summer storm. As Edie slowly unveils the lies and secrets
surrounding Lucy's disappearance, she must confront difficult
memories of her own childhood, and the terrors it held. One
Puzzling Afternoon is a dark and delightful lock box of riddles,
secrets and memories. A spellbinding novel that enchants and
unnerves in equal measure.' - Inga Vesper, author of The Long, Long
Afternoon
'An uplifting, bittersweet story with a page-turning mystery at its
heart. Emily Critchley writes about ageing and memory with huge
warmth and compassion, and I was drawn in to Edie's world from the
very first page. A beautifully atmospheric and endearing book.' -
Freya Sampson
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
