An intensely moving and beautifully written novel from the Booker-prize winning author of Last Orders, and Mothering Sunday




A BBC BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOKER PRIZE GEM

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF MOTHERING SUNDAY AND LAST ORDERS, and reissued for the first time on the Scribner list, The Light of Day is both a gripping crime story and a remarkable love story.

On a cold but dazzling November morning George Webb, a former policeman turned private detective, prepares to visit Sarah, a prisoner and the woman he loves. As he goes about the business of the day he relives the catastrophic events of two years ago that have both bound them together and kept them apart.

Making atmospheric use of its suburban setting and shot through with a plain man’s unwitting poetry and rueful humour, The Light of Day is a powerful and moving tale of murder, redemption and of the discovery, for better or worse, of the hidden forces inside us.

‘A real in-depth study of humanity’ Alex Jones, BBC Between the Covers

‘I loved this so much. The form is so interesting. The voice is just so clear and there’s this dryness to him too’ Omari Douglas, BBC Between the Covers

Praise for Mothering Sunday: 'Bathed in light; and even when tragedy strikes, it blazes irresistibly… Swift’s small fiction feels like a masterpiece’ Guardian

‘Alive with sensuousness and sensuality … wonderfully accomplished, it is an achievement’ Sunday Times

‘From start to finish Swift’s is a novel of stylish brilliance and quiet narrative verve. The archly modulated, precise prose (a hybrid of Henry Green and Kazuo Ishiguro) is a glory to read. Now 66, Swift is a writer at the very top of his game’ Evening Standard

‘ Mothering Sunday is a powerful, philosophical and exquisitely observed novel about the lives we lead, and the parallel lives – the parallel stories – we can never know … It may just be Swift’s best novel yet’ Observer