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A Novel
by Calla Henkel
A true-crime obsessed young artist is drawn into the lives of an deliriously wealthy family in this fantastically entertaining thriller from Calla Henkel, author of Other People's Clothes.
Recently dumped and stuck with a mortgage, artist Esther Ray wants to burn the world, but instead, she reluctantly accepts a scrapbooking job from the deliriously wealthy Naomi Duncan. The scrapbooks, a secret birthday gift for Naomi's husband, Bryce, trace the Duncan's 25-year marriage. The conditions: Esther must include every piece of paper she's been sent, must sign an NDA, and must only contact Naomi using the burner phone provided. Otherwise she'll spoil the surprise.
As Esther binges true-crime podcasts and works through the near-200 boxes of Duncan detritus, she finds herself infatuated with the gilded family—until, mid-project, Naomi dies suspiciously. When Esther becomes convinced the husband killed her, she uses the scrapbooks' trove of information to insert herself into the Duncans' lives to prove it. But the more Esther investigates, the further she is dragged back to the scorched earth of her past and the famous artist who paid her to disappear.
Laced with pitch-black humor and conspiratorial unease, Scrap is a razor-sharp examination of wealth and power, art and truth, of the line between justice and revenge—and who gets to cross it.
"[O]verstuffed...Under the weight of all [the[ exposition, the novel wobbles on the way toward its outlandish conclusion. Despite an intriguing setup, this falls short." —Publishers Weekly
"Art, true crime and extreme wealth collide in this blackly humorous and enjoyably twisted mystery." ―Paula Hawkins, author of Girl on the Train
"Scrap offers a bricolage of arson, true crime, mystery, and murder that takes its readers from the cozy humility of scrapbooking to the lofty heights of champagne dinners, exclusive gallery openings and private jets. At its wicked heart – a knotted mystery too intriguing to leave unpicked." ―Alice Slater, author of Death of a Bookseller
This information about Scrap was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Calla Henkel is an American writer, playwright, director and artist living between Berlin and Los Angeles. Her debut novel, Other People's Clothes, was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. She has staged plays at Volksbühne Berlin and the Whitney Museum of Art, and her artistic work with Max Pitegoff has been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide. She currently operates a theatre in Los Angeles, called New Theater Hollywood. Scrap is her second novel.
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