The Falconer [Paperback]

'There's folk and fairy tale in this, some whimsy, some Angela Carter-style sensuality, combined with an earthy realism, and a thriller-style plot... Thompson's writing is, as ever, the kind that demands full attention - important details are embedded in lyrical description or insinuated into an apparently innocuous observation. This is not a book that is kind to readers - you have to buy into the world its author has created, accept its own very special laws - and that requires effort. But it's effort that is ultimately rewarded: I doubt you'll read another book quite like it this year.' The Scotsman '...The world she creates is claustrophobic and hypnotic, recognisably a dream but also rational on its own, admittedly skewed, terms... Many novelists bore readers to sleep. Wake up to The Falconer.' The Sunday Herald 'Thompson's writing is, as ever, the kind that demands full attention - important details are embedded in lyrical description or insinuated into an apparently innocuous observation ... I doubt you'll read another book quite like it this year.' THE SCOTSMAN Praise for Alice Thompson's previous novels:'Cunning, clever, unbelievably casually complex - this is it: the intellectual future of British writing.' Ali Smith, The Scotsman 'Elegantly spare ... radically different in plot, style and language ... Thompson is one of the more original and idiosyncratic new voices in fiction.' Patricia Nicol, Sunday Times 'Thompson writes with a detached clarity that is liquid and sensual.' Rosemary Goring, Scotland on Sunday '...the elegance and accuracy with which Thompson uses language is formidable.' THE INDEPENDENT

It is 1936. Iris Tennant applies to become personal assistant to Lord Melfort, the Under-Secretary of War, at his private estate in the Scottish Highlands. Her secret plan is to find out why her younger sister Daphne committed suicide there a year previously. As Iris gradually falls under the spell of Glen Almain, she starts to see the apparition of Daphne haunting its glades and begins to wonder about the manner of her death. Is there really a beast that inhabits the woods? Who is the mysterious falconer? What actually happened to Daphne, and is Iris destined for the same fate? A backdrop of impending war and the spectre of Nazi Germany loom over this strange, dark tale. What ensues is a battle between instinct and reason, fantasy and history. Award-winning writer Alice Thompson's compelling new novel is a story of transformation; an exploration of the shifting borderlands between imagination and reality.

The Falconer is critically-acclaimed author Alice Thompson's fourth novel. The former keyboard player with post-punk eighties band, the Woodentops, was joint winner with Graham Swift of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction for her first novel, Justine. Her second novel, Pandora's Box, was shortlisted for The Stakis Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year. Alice is also a past winner of a Creative Scotland Award. She lives in Edinburgh.