"The plot is darkly, intricately layered , full of pitfalls and switchbacks, smart and funny and moving and merciless; the characters are all that and more. This is a powerful exploration of how truth isn't a complete and immutable thing, or a pure force of redemption: it's made up of broken shards that lie buried somewhere in the spaces between people, and when the jagged edges work their way to the surface, they can be devastating ." --Tana French, author of the New York Times bestselling In the Woods and The Trespasser " Dark, intense, and disturbing , Christopher Yates's Grist Mill Road begins with a shock and keeps the suspense burning page after page. A thriller with imagination to spare. Highly recommended ." --Krysten Ritter, author of Bonfire "Christopher Yates's Grist Mill Road is a terrific thriller . A horrid childhood crime carried secretly to adulthood, with menace lurking around the corner, and guilt hanging heavy overhead. Alfred Hitchcock would have optioned the plot in the blink of his gimlet eye.
A gripping read ." --Jason Matthews, author of the bestselling Red Sparrow trilogy "An intricately crafted novel about adult lives forever changed by closely held childhood secrets. Grist Mill Road is a compulsive read that will unsettle you from its first page and surprise you until its very last." --Jung Yun, author of Shelter " Grist Mill Road is full of tension and unexpected twists." --Angela Carone, San Diego Magazine "5 Books to Read in January" "Yates constructed a thrilling psychological puzzle in his first novel, Black Chalk . With his second, he's written an even more complex and propulsive whodunnit laced with questions about moral responsibility, the relativity of truth, the reliability of memory and the long-term consequences of our actions." --Jane Ciabattari, BBC.COM "10 Books to Read in 2018" Praise for Christopher J.
Yates's Black Chalk "This is the smart summer thriller you've been waiting for. The black and harmful little book you want in your carry-on.The novel you should be reading tonight."--NPR's All Things Considered "Yates's characters are even wittier than [Donna] Tartt's.Yates is a master of college-student psychology.[He] has achieved something new and impressive. Pick up Black Chalk ."-- The Washington Post "A riveting psychological thriller.
Terrifying.Read it fast."-- Entertainment Weekly "A new Stephen King, albeit with a British accent."-- New York Post "Christopher J. Yates's debut novel is a psychological thriller about the consequences of friendship gone awry. The result is a story littered with twists that will keep you guessing until the final page."-- Paste magazine "A sardonic psychological thriller.Yates, a crossword puzzle maker himself, sets clues firmly in place, moves back and forth in time, and throws in surprises at every turn.
Black Chalk is an engrossing literary guessing game."--BBC.com "Dark, twisty fun."-- New York Daily News "Dark deeds among school cliques is a milieu that's attracted top-tier authors from Donna Tartt to Tana French, and this debut thriller is a worthy addition, with its chesslike psychological showdown."-- Booklist.