Havoc

Now she has finally come to rest somewhere she can imagine staying forever: the Royal Karnak Hotel in Luxor, Egypt.

Maggie is no sweet old lady. She has a nasty, nosy little habit: she spies on her fellow guests and manipulates situations to -liberate- them from what she sees as unhappy relationships.

When an eight-year-old boy, Otto, and his well-meaning mother arrive at the hotel, Maggie sees two easy targets. But she is more wrong than she could possibly know, and is soon locked in a death-spiral with Otto – has she finally met her match in a child one-tenth her age?

Crackling with the perceptive acid wit of The White Lotus and haloed by Shirley Jackson’s cruel, dark magic, Christopher Bollen’s new novel is a decadent and ghastly delight.