Flynn Berry

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In 2016, Flynn Berry burst onto the literary scene with her award-winning debut novel, Under the Harrow.  Bustle crowned it “the thriller of the summer” and Berry went on to win the Edgar Award for Best First Novel.  Under the Harrow was met with a chorus of acclaim from critics and readers who loved how she “imbues the classic murder mystery with rich emotional depth” and explores the “fierce, complicated love that exists between sisters” (O, the Oprah Magazine) while keeping you turning the pages.  The mystery at the heart of her second novel A DOUBLE LIFE was inspired by a notorious unsolved crime: the Lord Lucan Case, in which a British Lord attacked his wife, murdered his children’s nanny, and fled the country, never to be seen again. Berry mesmerizes the reader with the opening pages with one unforgettable image: a women running into a quiet pub, asking for help. A DOUBLE LIFE imagines a life lived in the shadow of such a crime. Just eight years old on the night of her father’s alleged attack, Claire is now a doctor in London. Determined to learn what really happened that night, she immerses herself in his abandoned life, doing whatever it takes to get close to the rich, titled families she believes helped him escape—just maybe, close enough to finally find him.  As in Under the Harrow, here again Berry “takes some of the big social struggles that have animated the feminist movement and makes them specific and personal, exploring the rippling effects of power imbalances across individual lives” (The Atlantic). A DOUBLE LIFE resonates with our current moment in its exploration of class and privilege, violence against women, and attempts to discredit and control women who speak out against it.