Scrap

‘Blackly humorous and enjoyably twisted’ Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train

‘A knotted mystery too intriguing to leave unpicked’ Alice Slater, author of Death of a Bookseller

‘Binge-worthy . . . a brilliantly immersive and almost cinematic experience’ Jenny Mustard, author of Okay Days

Recently dumped and stuck with the 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 twenty-five-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-two hundred-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 Duncan’s’ 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 humour 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.

Author Biography

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 Volksbuhne 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.