First published 2025
On a Yorkshire farm during an illegal rave, someone nearly kills a young man with a solid gold bar. An ambitious journalist decides to investigate the attack. She traces connections between three unlikely figures: a banker who owns the property, a provocative newspaper columnist, and members of an anarchist movement living on the farm. The journalist cracks the case and publishes her findings online. Her story goes viral, but the exposure creates new mysteries instead of providing closure. The investigation forces her to confront how language shapes power, how words can wound or heal, and how the same story can mean different things to different people. Brown crafts a thriller that examines the gap between what people say and what they actually mean.
Genres: literary-fiction, mystery, crime, contemporary, thriller, social-issues
Vibes: ambiguous, intellectually-challenging, introspective, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: investigation-uncovers-complexity, no-clear-resolution, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Yorkshire
Period: 21st-century
156 pages · Paperback · Faber
Content warnings: violence