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Richard Madeley

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Hi everyone Father's Day is my first revenge thriller. For that kind of story to work, I reckon you need two key components - a really, really compelling motive for the act of revenge, and for that act to be very, very extreme. Also, I wanted a current, contemporary edge to it - so the theme I chose was the modern curse of internet trolling. Hopefully, you'll think I've delivered here. I vile internet troll - a man in his 40s - catfishes teenage girls online by pretending to be an adolescent girl himself. Calls himself Rosie. Gets his warped kicks from grooming them into self-harming, and if possible, ultimately, taking their own life. In Father's Day the troll, Arthur Scanlon, has succeeded in doing both. And the poor girl's father, Nick Wychwood, has NO idea why his darling Lucy did it. She left no note. But two years after he lost her, Nick discovers a secret laptop she used to privately message with 'Rosie'. He powers it up, hacks into it, and views the thread. He is appalled, but also immediately realises exactly what was going on. And he swears by all he holds dear to SOMEHOW track the troll down - and kill him. It's no plot-spoiler to say that he succeeds, because the book opens with an extra-judicial execution. The troll has been crucified. Upside down. On an X-shaped cross (exactly as the Romans executed saints like St Peter). Tellingly, the death sentence has been carried out in a British-Roman amphitheatre (which really exists; I've been there. It's an amazingly well-preserved Roman ruin just outside Cirencester in the Cotswolds. Used to seat 8,000 people two millenia ago). The Roman theme is central to my story, BTW, as you'll find out if you read it. As is the gorgeous Cotswold countryside. Meanwhile, the chase is on. Police must find out who the dead man was, why he was so brutally put to death in an imperial-style execution, and who did it. But as the net closes in on Nick (who has covered his tracks BRILLIANTLY - not a trace of forensics) it's WE who must decide what we want to happen. Do we really want this grieving, vengeful father caught? Punished? Or are we secretly on his side? Even the police find themselves wrestling with this moral dilemma. It's eye-for-and-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth stuff. Are some crimes so utterly wicked and depraved (I'm talking about poor Lucy's lethal grooming) that the perpetrators deserve everything they get? Well, whatever YOU decide, I hope you enjoy the novel. I loved writing it. And trust me - it's not all darkness. There's a romance (central to the plot) and quite a lot of wry humour. Let me know what you think once you've read it. All the best everyone - Richard
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