Five years ago, 81-year-old Maggie Burkhardt fled her native Wisconsin in suspicious circumstances. She has come to rest somewhere she can imagine staying forever: the Royal Karnak Hotel in Luxor, Egypt.

Maggie is no sweet little old lady. She has a nasty, nosy habit: she spies on her fellow guests and manipulates situations to ‘liberate’ them from what she sees as unhappy relationships.

Wrongly assuming eight-year-old Otto and his well-meaning mother will be easy targets, she is soon locked in a death-spiral with her young prey. Has she finally met her match in a child one-tenth her age?

Crackling with the perceptive, acid wit of The White Lotus and haloed by Shirley Jackson’s cruel, dark magic, HAVOC is a decadent and ghastly delight.

Paperback: 256 pages

Havoc

Designer: The Borough Press

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