This Wild, Wild Country

'Thrilling, haunting and darkly beautiful. This Wild, Wild Country enchants as mysteries deepen and secrets echo over the harsh realities of the American Dream' Chris Whitaker, bestselling author of We Begin at the End

Three women. An isolated town. A decades-old mystery.

They hate me down there, in Boldville. I can read it in their eyes, smell it on their noxious breaths. That dreaded little town hates everything about me: not just my personality and form, the clothes I wear, but the way I think.

The things that I know.

1933. Cornelia Stover is headstrong and business-minded - not the kind of woman the men of Boldville, New Mexico, expect her to be. Then she stumbles upon a secret hidden out in the hills . . .

1970. Decades later, Joanna Riley, a former cop, packs up her car in the middle of the night and drives west, fleeing an abusive marriage and a life she can no longer bear. Eventually, she runs out of gas and finds herself in Boldville, a sleepy desert town in the foothills of the Gila Mountains.

Joanna was looking for somewhere to retreat, to hide, but something is off about this place. In a commune on the outskirts a young man has been found dead and Joanna knows a cover up when she sees it. Soon, she and Glitter, a young, disaffected hippie, find themselves caught up in a dark mystery that goes to the very heart of Boldville, where for too long people have kept their eyes shut and turned their heads away. A mystery that leads them all the way back to the unexplained disappearance of Glitter's grandmother Cornelia forty years before . . .

A captivating, atmospheric new novel from the lauded author of The Long, Long Afternoon, This Wild Wild Country simmers with secrets, lies and terrible betrayal, unravelling the lives of three women at the mercy of their times.

Praise for Inga Vesper

'Vesper is immensely readable' Sunday Times

'Remarkably assured. A tale of inequality, broken dreams and quiet desperation behind a picture-perfect facade' Guardian

'A clever and absorbing debut' The Times

'Beguiling and evocative. This vivid and atmospheric pageturner will keep readers guessing all the way to its satisfying finale' Sunday Express

'Beautifully crafted, claustrophobic and compelling. As delicious as a long drink on a hot day' Stacey Halls, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Familiars and The Foundling

'Such a vivid atmosphere of stifling LA heat and stifling 50s domesticity' Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures

'Breathtakingly stylish, hypnotic and masterfully gripping' Chris Whitaker, author of We Begin at the End, Waterstones Thriller of the Month

'A triumph. What a pleasure to read something fresh and original. For once the hype is justified and Inga Vesper's gripping page turner must surely now be bound for Netflix' Evening Standard

'A tasty, tense, page-turning combo of James Ellroy and Kate Atkinson with a bit of Mad Men thrown in'

Liz Hyder

'An atmospheric tale of repression and style at the heart of the American Dream' Stylist