‘Everything stays the same for the tenants of The Beresford, a grand old apartment building just outside the city … until the doorbell rings…’
– The Beresford
[ About the Book ]
Just outside the city – any city, every city – is a grand, spacious but affordable apartment building called The Beresford.
There’s a routine at The Beresford.
For Mrs May, every day’s the same: a cup of cold, black coffee in the morning, pruning roses, checking on her tenants, wine, prayer and an afternoon nap. She never leaves the building.
Abe Schwartz also lives at The Beresford. His housemate, Sythe, no longer does. Because Abe just killed him.
In exactly sixty seconds, Blair Conroy will ring the doorbell to her new home and Abe will answer the door. They will become friends. Perhaps lovers.
And, when the time comes for one of them to die, as is always the case at The Beresford, there will be sixty seconds to move the body before the next unknowing soul arrives at the door.
Because nothing changes at The Beresford, until the doorbell rings…
[ My Review ]
The Beresford by Will Carver will be published in original paperback with Orenda Books July 22nd ( ebook May 22nd ) and is described as ‘eerie, dark, superbly twisted and majestically plotted, the stunning standalone thriller from one of crime fiction’s most exciting names’. If you have already been lucky enough to experience a Will Carver novel then you know that you are about to enter a very strange and disconcerting world.
Will Carver will always take me beyond my comfort zone and, with The Beresford, he has done it again. I don’t normally ‘do’ horror, and The Beresford is a truly dark and extremely twisted tale, but I make an exception for Will Carver. In a Will Carver book there are always very well-crafted and intelligent observations scattered throughout reflecting, I assume, his own personal frustrations with the way we live today.
Mrs. May is the doyenne of The Beresford, a building that has sat for generations witnessing the comings and goings of many tenants, all with a different story to tell. Nobody knows her age. Nobody knows how long she has lived there. The only thing they know is that she never leaves the building. She has a strict routine. She offers extremely affordable accommodation and asks few questions of those who move in. But The Beresford is no ordinary building….
“The Beresford was old. It was grand. It evolved with the people who inhabited its rooms and apartments. It was dark and elephantine and it breathed with its people. Paint peeled and there were cracks in places. It was bricks and mortar and plaster and wood. And it was alive.”
Tenants come and go at an alarming pace but it’s the going that is so very very strange. People die in The Beresford. People are murdered in The Beresford. Bodies are disposed of and the cycle continues. The door bell rings for a new arrival and a body has to be removed within sixty seconds, always sixty seconds. What is The Beresford? Who is Mrs. May?
Without fail every prospective tenant arrives to The Beresford with a dream. We get an insight into their character, their personal ambitions and their back story. As time passes we see their disappointments, their frustrations and their failures and, in most cases, we witness their death.
“Why she could feel herself changing. What was so special about that building? What did Mrs May know? How long had it been happening for? Who the hell was she becoming?”
It is strange picking up a book knowing in advance that most of the characters will face an untimely death but the absolute beauty of Will Carver’s writing is that you know that there will be so much more to discover. Reading a Will Carver book is a journey and along the way, the reader will be taken down various paths, discovering a little bit about themselves and the world they live in along the way. It’s almost like a mirror is being put in front of us, exposing our obsession with perfection and ambition, our desire to be accepted and loved and the price we are willing to pay to succeed.
The Beresford reminds me of a Hitchcock thriller with a very modern twist. An old boarding house. A strange landlady. Tenants all with a story to tell. Shadows. Death. Darkness. Evil…. All the ingredients for a dark, noir and frankly scary movie.
Not for the faint of heart, The Beresford is another highly intelligent and strong novel from this ingenious of writers. Will Carver has literally carved himself a niche in the literary world that is uniquely his own and to be honest, at this point I think we need a specific genre created just for him.
The Beresford is gruesome. The Beresford is discombobulating. The Beresford is shocking. The Beresford is downright malevolent and extremely disturbing. The Beresford is addictive. The Beresford is original.
[ Bio ]
Will Carver is the international bestselling author of the January David series and the critically acclaimed, mind-blowingly original Detective Pace series that includes Good Samaritans (2018), Nothing Important Happened Today (2019) and Hinton Hollow Death Trip (2020), all of which were ebook bestsellers and selected as books of the year in the mainstream international press. Nothing Important Happened Today was longlisted for both the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award 2020 and the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. Hinton Hollow Death Trip was longlisted for Guardian‘s Not the Booker Prize.
He spent his early years in Germany, but returned to the UK at age eleven, when his sporting career took off. He turned down a professional rugby contract to study theatre and television at King Alfred’s, Winchester, where he set up a successful theatre company.
He currently runs his own fitness and nutrition company, and lives in Reading with his children.
Twitter – @will_carver
