On her first shift at an Edinburgh halfway house for violent offenders, a young woman is taken hostage … and that's just the beginning… The twisty, shocking, darkly funny thriller by award-winning author Helen FitzGerald.

`A new novel from Helen Fitzgerald is always a major event … magnificent´ Mark Billingham

`Outrageous, hilarious and dark as hell – this is Helen FitzGerald on absolute top form´ Doug Johnstone

`[Lou] is irresistible and very funny … The set-up is fascinating, the narrative is both fast-moving and convincing´ Literary Review

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They`re the housemates from Hell…

When her disastrous Australian love affair ends, Lou O´Dowd heads to Edinburgh for a fresh start, moving in with her cousin, and preparing for the only job she can find … working at a halfway house for very high-risk offenders.

Two killers, a celebrity paedophile and a paranoid coke dealer – all out on parole and all sharing their outwardly elegant Edinburgh townhouse with rookie night-worker Lou…

And instead of finding some meaning and purpose to her life, she finds herself trapped in a terrifying game of cat and mouse where she stands to lose everything – including her life.

Slick, darkly funny and nerve-janglingly tense, Halfway House is both a breathtaking thriller and an unapologetic reminder never to corner a desperate woman…

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`Tense, claustrophobic and laugh-out-loud funny … an amazingly talented writer´ Michael Wood

`A genius combination of horror, humour and humanity´ B M Carroll

Praise for Helen FitzGerald

**Shortlisted for Theakston Crime Novel of the Year**

`Sharp, shocking and savagely funny´ Chris Whitaker

`Dark, dark, deliciously dark´ Amanda Jennings

`Wickedly funny, breath-stealingly tense and utterly chilling´ Miranda Dickinson

`The main character is one of the most extraordinary you`ll meet between the pages of a book´ Ian Rankin

`Sublime´ Guardian

`A dark, comic masterpiece´ Mark Edwards

`Urgent, angry, absolutely terrifying´ Erin Kelly

`Tantalisingly powerful´ The Times

`The classic thriller gets a hell of a twist´ Heat

`FitzGerald writes like a more focused Irvine Welsh or a less misogynist Philip Roth´ Daily Telegraph

`Domestic life is rarely served up quite so dark as this´ Sun