'Absorbing and original . . . A very smart tale packed with jeopardy' Daily Mail
'Keeps you guessing till the very end' The Times
'An absolute page-turner' Miranda Cowley Heller, author of The Paper Palace
He's in your house. He's in your family. Or is he in your mind?
Gil has been estranged from his sister ever since her obnoxious son tried to drown his daughter on a family holiday. That's Gil's interpretation; his sister thinks Matthew was just playing around.
Or did. When she and her husband perish in a car crash, Gil becomes Matthew's legal guardian. Matthew is now an urbane 17-year-old, raised on Manhattan's Upper East Side, a planet away from rural Vermont, where Gil lives with his wife and daughters, teaching at the local university.
At first, Matthew appears to have changed, but when he joins Gil's writing class, he submits a story detailing the various ways a character resembling Gil's youngest daughter might die. While Gil believes he has invited a psychopath to live under his roof, the women in his life are impressed by Matthew's intelligence and charm. Is Gil losing his mind, or are his family in desperate danger?
Genre: Mystery
'Keeps you guessing till the very end' The Times
'An absolute page-turner' Miranda Cowley Heller, author of The Paper Palace
He's in your house. He's in your family. Or is he in your mind?
Gil has been estranged from his sister ever since her obnoxious son tried to drown his daughter on a family holiday. That's Gil's interpretation; his sister thinks Matthew was just playing around.
Or did. When she and her husband perish in a car crash, Gil becomes Matthew's legal guardian. Matthew is now an urbane 17-year-old, raised on Manhattan's Upper East Side, a planet away from rural Vermont, where Gil lives with his wife and daughters, teaching at the local university.
At first, Matthew appears to have changed, but when he joins Gil's writing class, he submits a story detailing the various ways a character resembling Gil's youngest daughter might die. While Gil believes he has invited a psychopath to live under his roof, the women in his life are impressed by Matthew's intelligence and charm. Is Gil losing his mind, or are his family in desperate danger?
Genre: Mystery
Praise for this book
"A gripping, twisty psychological thriller about the destructiveness of toxic masculinity hell-bent on protecting its own. I couldn't put it down." - Miranda Beverly-Whittemore
"Nathan Oates's debut, A Flaw in the Design, is not only a deep dive into the things that can rock the cradle of a family but also an absolute page-turner. I read it in a single sitting." - Miranda Cowley Heller
"A Flaw in the Design is a literary thriller of the highest order. Oates manages, with wisdom and insight, to explore the vulnerability of parenthood, the economic injustice of New York City, middle-age compromise, and the fallibility of storytelling, all while telling a heart-pounding tale that commanded my attention from the first sentence to the last." - Julia May Jonas
"Menace and mendacity vie with the mundane in this skillfully told tale about ambition and grief and envy. A wealthy, smarmy nephew; an aging midlist writer charged with his care; two daughters; the long Vermont winter - what could go wrong? A Flaw in the Design is an impressive debut. Cue the sequel." - Alice McDermott
"What happens when a (possibly murderous) sociopath takes a writing workshop? This is the premise of Nathan Oates's delicious, inexorable, fast-paced tale of obsession - a thriller that will keep you reading till the end." - Karan Mahajan
"Get ready for a wild ride. Brutal and compelling, A Flaw in the Design is the story of a family driven toward destruction, as a father takes custody of the nephew he fears will wreck his life. This novel swerves and shocks before smashing into you, a T-bone collision you can hold in your hands." - Julia Phillips
"This suspenseful debut novel keeps the reader on tenterhooks in a fearful family drama. Oh, this demands a sequel!" - Christine Schutt
"Brilliantly constructed and psychologically astute, this novel had me turning pages late into the night and left me reeling in the aftermath of its stunning conclusion. Bravo!" - Antoine Wilson
"Nathan Oates's debut, A Flaw in the Design, is not only a deep dive into the things that can rock the cradle of a family but also an absolute page-turner. I read it in a single sitting." - Miranda Cowley Heller
"A Flaw in the Design is a literary thriller of the highest order. Oates manages, with wisdom and insight, to explore the vulnerability of parenthood, the economic injustice of New York City, middle-age compromise, and the fallibility of storytelling, all while telling a heart-pounding tale that commanded my attention from the first sentence to the last." - Julia May Jonas
"Menace and mendacity vie with the mundane in this skillfully told tale about ambition and grief and envy. A wealthy, smarmy nephew; an aging midlist writer charged with his care; two daughters; the long Vermont winter - what could go wrong? A Flaw in the Design is an impressive debut. Cue the sequel." - Alice McDermott
"What happens when a (possibly murderous) sociopath takes a writing workshop? This is the premise of Nathan Oates's delicious, inexorable, fast-paced tale of obsession - a thriller that will keep you reading till the end." - Karan Mahajan
"Get ready for a wild ride. Brutal and compelling, A Flaw in the Design is the story of a family driven toward destruction, as a father takes custody of the nephew he fears will wreck his life. This novel swerves and shocks before smashing into you, a T-bone collision you can hold in your hands." - Julia Phillips
"This suspenseful debut novel keeps the reader on tenterhooks in a fearful family drama. Oh, this demands a sequel!" - Christine Schutt
"Brilliantly constructed and psychologically astute, this novel had me turning pages late into the night and left me reeling in the aftermath of its stunning conclusion. Bravo!" - Antoine Wilson
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Used availability for Nathan Oates's A Flaw in the Design