Sixteen Horses

"Dark, visceral and disturbing, this highly suspenseful and beautifully written thriller is totally gripping from start to finish. A hugely impressive debut." -Alex Michaelides, author of The Silent Patient and The Maidens

"Louise Brealey's understated narration creates a dark atmosphere well suited to this story … Her subtle characterizations enhance the believable and complicated protagonists, as well as various colorful villagers." -AudioFile Magazine

A literary thriller from stunning new talent Greg Buchanan, Sixteen Horses is a story of enduring guilt, trauma, and punishment, set in a small seaside community the rest of the world has left behind.

In Ilmarsh, England, local police detective Alec Nichols discovers sixteen horses' heads on a farm, each buried with a single eye facing the low winter sun. After Veterinary Forensics expert Cooper Allen travels to the scene, a pathogen is discovered lurking within the soil, and many of those who have come into contact with the corpses grow critically ill.

A series of crimes comes to light-disappearances, arson, and mutilations-and in the dark days that follow, the town slips into panic and paranoia. Everything is not as it seems. Anyone could be a suspect. And as Cooper finds herself unable to leave town, Alec is stalked by an unseen threat. The two investigators race to uncover the truth behind these frightened and insidious mysteries-no matter the cost.

A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books