On her first shift at an Edinburgh halfway house for violent offenders, a young woman is taken hostage … and that's just the beginning… The twisty, shocking, darkly funny thriller by award-winning author Helen FitzGerald.   'A new novel from Helen Fitzgerald is always a major event … magnificent' Mark Billingham   ‘Outrageous, hilarious and dark as hell – this is Helen FitzGerald on absolute top form’ Doug Johnstone   ‘[Lou] is irresistible and very funny … The set-up is fascinating, the narrative is both fast-moving and convincing’ Literary Review   _______   They’re the housemates from Hell… When her disastrous Australian love affair ends, Lou O’Dowd heads to Edinburgh for a fresh start, moving in with her cousin, and preparing for the only job she can find … working at a halfway house for very high-risk offenders. Two killers, a celebrity paedophile and a paranoid coke dealer – all out on parole and all sharing their outwardly elegant Edinburgh townhouse with rookie night-worker Lou… And instead of finding some meaning and purpose to her life, she finds herself trapped in a terrifying game of cat and mouse where she stands to lose everything – including her life. Slick, darkly funny and nerve-janglingly tense, Halfway House is both a breathtaking thriller and an unapologetic reminder never to corner a desperate woman…   __________________________   ‘Tense, claustrophobic and laugh-out-loud funny … an amazingly talented writer’ Michael Wood   ‘A genius combination of horror, humour and humanity' B M Carroll   Praise for Helen FitzGerald   **Shortlisted for Theakston Crime Novel of the Year**   'Sharp, shocking and savagely funny’ Chris Whitaker   ‘Dark, dark, deliciously dark' Amanda Jennings   'Wickedly funny, breath-stealingly tense and utterly chilling' Miranda Dickinson   'The main character is one of the most extraordinary you'll meet between the pages of a book' Ian Rankin 'Sublime' Guardian 'A dark, comic masterpiece' Mark Edwards 'Urgent, angry, absolutely terrifying’ Erin Kelly 'Tantalisingly powerful' The Times 'The classic thriller gets a hell of a twist' Heat 'FitzGerald writes like a more focused Irvine Welsh or a less misogynist Philip Roth' Daily Telegraph 'Domestic life is rarely served up quite so dark as this’ Sun