The Killing of Bobbi Lomax

Hypnotically creepy ... Written by a woman who was once a private detective, this is a spooky crime debut with Stephen King-style twists.

Explosive ... a pacy, cerebral thriller.

'[A] total wow of a first novel. Moriarty can do breakneck speed without skimping on the development of her characters. Superb.'

'crime fiction aficionados are in luck right now - barely a month seems to pass without a first-time novelist arriving fully formed, with all the authority of older hands. The latest is Cal Moriarty, who centres her debut on an unassuming book-lover who may also be an ingenious murderer. Clark Houseman comes to the attention of Moriarty's tenacious detectives Sinclair and Alvarez when bombs go off in the US city of Abraham, killing the eponymous Bobbi Lomax and a man named Peter Gudsen. The survivor is Houseman, who turns out to be a skilled forger of literary signatures and, like Lomax and Gudsen, to have belonged to a sinister sect, The Faith. Moriarty's novel is a blistering examination of both the criminal mind and the dark secrets that lie within America's Bible Belt.'

The Killing of Bobbi Lomax is an explosive, intelligent and gripping thriller that takes you deep into an underworld of religious cults and high stakes counterfeiting. The story hurtles along with great pace and panache and the dialogue is superb and surprising. A high-pitched, dream-fevered brilliant debut novel from a writer we'll no doubt be hearing lots from.

Moriarty writes with a real flair for dynamic action, detail and pace. The Killing of Bobbi Lomax is an evocative, original novel. Noirish, modern, with a dry comic edge.