Then a skull is found in the trunk of an elm tree in the garden - and as detectives close in, Toby is forced to face the possibility that his past may not be what he has always believed.Ī spellbinding standalone from one of the best suspense writers working today, The Witch Elm asks what we become, and what we're capable of, when we no longer know who we are. She was victim of a tangled wartime web of espionage and black. Struggling to recover from his injuries, beginning to understand that he might never be the same man again, he takes refuge at his family's ancestral home to care for his dying uncle Hugo. This is the face of Bella in the Wych Elm, a woman whose ritualistic killing sparked one of Britain’s greatest murder mysteries. Toby is a happy-go-lucky charmer who's dodged a scrape at work and is celebrating with friends when the night takes a turn that will change his life - he surprises two burglars who beat him and leave him for dead. BOTTOM LINE As other reviewers have stated, the story slows a bit during the development stage, but that I believe was an artistic decision and has nothing to do with why I’m taking a star away. Named a best book of the fall by Vogue, Entertainment Weekly, Elle, Amazon, PopSugar, The Millions, LitHub, and ParadeĪ brilliant new work of suspense from 'the most important crime novelist to emerge in the past 10 years.' (Washington Post)įrom the writer who 'inspires cultic devotion in readers' ( The New Yorker ) and has been called 'incandescent' by Stephen King, 'absolutely mesmerizing' by Gillian Flynn, and 'unputdownable' ( People ), comes a gripping new novel that turns a crime story inside out.

The witch elm