Abigail Dean started her career as a bookseller, then worked as a lawyer for ten years, most recently for Google. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Girl A. She lives in London with her husband, son, and cat.
A Lesson in Cruelty (2024) Harriet Tyce "An edge-of-your-seat thriller and a brilliant, furious meditation on the modern prison system. Harriet Tyce's eye for people - their foibles, missteps, and cruelties - is sharp as a blade."
The Wrong Sister (2024) Claire Douglas "This is a book that won't leave you be. It's a brilliant jigsaw of suspicious characters, grisly deeds, and family tragedy - and Douglas only lets you see the full picture on the very last page."
Nightwatching (2024) Tracy Sierra "Few novels have affected me like this one. Nightwatching is acutely frightening and beautifully written, as tender as it is terrifying. I can't remember rooting for a character quite so hard!"
The Trap (2023) Catherine Ryan Howard "Everything a thriller should be: clever, page-tearing, devastating. Catherine Ryan Howard makes you feel for her characters so much, whether you love them or absolutely loathe them. It's impossible to stop reading - or to stop thinking about THE TRAP, long after you're done."
The Quiet Tenant (2023) Clémence Michallon "From the first page, you can say farewell to sleep, conversation, Netflix. This is Room meets Notes on an Execution, a brilliant, breathtaking thriller with characters you love - and love to hate. I didn't know whether to tear to the end or savour every page."
The Girls Are Good (2022) Ilaria Bernardini "A tight, frightening story of friendship, rivalry and obsession, told in sparse and beautiful prose. Tense as the space between the uneven bars."
Idol (2022) Louise O'Neill "Brutal, compulsive, brilliant. Louise O'Neill exposes the contradictions and quandaries of influencer culture with her usual perceptiveness."
Breathless (2022) Amy McCulloch "This thriller would be unsettling enough at sea level, but in the death zone, it's suffocatingly tense. McCulloch combines extreme mountaineering with murder to create a novel that's chilling, vivid, and entirely unique."
Jen Williams "An unsettling pastoral thriller, which grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go. Part-Midsommar, part-Hereditary, part-Mindhunter – and entirely terrifying."
Greenwich Park (2021) Katherine Faulkner "A fantastically addictive read. It's so pacy, and there's a real sense of dread on every page . fabulously unpleasant characters, and a beating feminist heart."
More recommendations
Awards
2022 CrimeFest: eDunnit Award : Girl A
Award nominations
2023 CrimeFest: Sounds of Crime Award (nominee) : Girl A
2022 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year (shortlist) : Girl A
2022 International Thriller Writers Award for Best First Novel (nominee) : Girl A
2022 British Book Award for Crime and Thriller Book of the Year (shortlist) : Girl A
2022 Barry Award for Best First Novel (nominee) : Girl A
