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Book Summary and Reviews of A Thousand Cuts by Simon Lelic

A Thousand Cuts by Simon Lelic

A Thousand Cuts

by Simon Lelic

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  • Published:
  • Mar 2010, 304 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

It should be an open-and-shut case. Samuel Szajkowski, a recently hired history teacher, walked into a school assembly with a gun and murdered three students and a colleague before turning the weapon on himself. It was a tragedy that could not have been predicted. Szajkowski, it seems clear, was a psychopath beyond help. Yet as Detective Inspector Lucia May - the only woman in her high-testosterone office in the Criminal Investigations Department - begins to piece together the testimonies of the various witnesses, an uglier and more complex picture emerges, calling into question the innocence of others. But no one, including Lucia's boss, is interested.

As the pressure to close the case builds and her colleagues' sexism takes a sinister turn, Lucia begins to realize that she has more in common with the killer than she could have imagined, and she becomes deter­mined to expose the truth. Brilliantly interweaving the witnesses' accounts with Lucia's own perspective, A Thousand Cuts is a narrative tour de force from a formidable new voice in fiction.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. This deeply human and moving book heralds a bright new talent." - Publishers Weekly

"Starred Review. Lelic wastes not a word in this searing indictment of a culture inured to cruelty." - Booklist

This information about A Thousand Cuts 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.

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More Information

Simon Lelic has worked as a journalist and currently runs his own business. A Thousand Cuts is his first novel.

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