The Household Traitors

'Come back Paddy Reilly to me' - the words of an old Irish ballad provide a sinister theme for John Blackburn's sixteenth novel, The Household Traitors (1971). No one has seen or heard from Patricia Reilly in more than thirty years, so why are a ruthless industrial tycoon, a Soviet defector, and a deranged serial killer all so anxious to find her? The trail of mystery leads from a town terrorized by murder to a remote railway station in North Wales, where the action reaches a climax aboard a runaway steam train. Along the way, a hijacked aircraft, a corpse in a safe, and a number of strangled women with something strange in common provide some of the clues, but the final secret is reserved for the last pages of this ingenious thriller. This is the first-ever reprint of The Household Traitors, a page-turner with a 'strong Grand Guignol finish' (The Guardian) by 'today's master of horror' (Times Literary Supplement).'Our only current writer who can induce such terror as the Grimm Brothers did.' - Times Literary Supplement 'Lots of unguessable surprises.' - The Observer 'He is certainly the best British novelist in his field and deserves the widest recognition.' - Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural '[A] stylish, genuinely chilling author . . . He can be depended upon to sustain swift, sure, exciting, and absorbing stories . . . undoubtedly one of England's best practicing novelists in the tradition of the thriller novel.' - St James Guide to Crime & Mystery Writers

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