The Unloved - Tapa blanda

A hypnotising summer novel from the twice Man Booker-shortlisted author of Hot Milk and Swimming Home

A group of hedonistic West European tourists gather to celebrate Christmas in a remote French chateau. Then an Englishwoman is brutally murdered, and the sad, eerie child Tatiana declares she knows who did it.

The subsequent inquiry into the death proves to be more of an investigation into the nature of love, insatiable rage and sadistic desire. The Unloved offers a bold and revealing look at some of the events that shaped European and African history, and the perils of a future founded on concealed truth.

'Brave and brilliant, measured and lyrical' Independent

Deep in the remote French countryside, an elegant group of tourists celebrate Christmas in a rented chateau. But their leisure time is rudely interrupted by a body. An English woman has been murdered and Tatiana, the unloved child, claims she knows who did it.

The murder is a mystery, but a search for the truth will lead to many more disturbing mysteries of the human heart: insatiable rage, sadistic desire, colonial violence. Underneath the hedonism of these wealthy lives, a savage dissatisfaction is smouldering. The unloved and the unloving are perpetual bedfellows in this mesmerising early novel from the twice Man Booker-shortlisted author of Hot Milk and Swimming Home.

'Levy's prose throbs its way into the imagination' Observer

'Startling, compelling, cool' The Times

'Levy's sense of dramatic form is unerring, and her precise, dispassionate prose effortlessly summons people and landscapes' New Yorker

[thumbnail of HOT MILK]