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The Fury by Alex Michaelides

Thriller

The Fury

3peat author

Alex Michaelides is officially a 3-time author at BOTM, which is a pretty big deal!

by Alex Michaelides

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Quick take

From twist-master Alex Michaelides, a gripping new thriller about a glamorous trip to Greece that takes a bloody turn.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, Psychological

    Psychological

  • Illustrated icon, Unreliable_Narrator

    Unreliable narrator

  • Illustrated icon, Buzzy

    Buzzy

  • Illustrated icon, Glamorous

    Glamorous

Synopsis

This is a tale of murder.

Or maybe that’s not quite true. At its heart, it’s a love story, isn’t it?

Lana Farrar is a reclusive ex-movie star and one of the most famous women in the world. Every year, she invites her closest friends to escape the English weather and spend Easter on her idyllic private Greek island.

I tell you this because you may think you know this story. You probably read about it at the time—it caused a real stir in the tabloids, if you remember. It had all the necessary ingredients for a press sensation: a celebrity; a private island cut off by the wind…and a murder.

We found ourselves trapped there overnight. Our old friendships concealed hatred and a desire for revenge. What followed was a game of cat and mouse—a battle of wits, full of twists and turns, building to an unforgettable climax. The night ended in violence and death, as one of us was found murdered.

But who am I?

My name is Elliot Chase, and I’m going to tell you a story unlike any you’ve ever heard.

Free sample

Get an early look from the first pages of The Fury.

The Fury

Prologue

Never open a book with the weather.

Who was it who said that? I can’t remember—some famous writer, I expect.

Whoever it was, they were right. Weather is boring. Nobody wants to read about weather; particularly in England, where we have so much of it. People want to read about people—and they generally skip descriptive paragraphs, in my experience.

Avoiding the weather is good advice—which I now disregard at my peril. An exception to prove the rule, I hope. Don’t worry, my story isn’t set in England, so I’m not talking about rain here. I draw the line at rain—no book should start with rain ever. No exceptions.

I’m talking about wind. The wind that whirls around the Greek islands. Wild, unpredictable Greek wind. Wind that drives you mad. The wind was fierce that night—the night of the murder. It was ferocious, furious—crashing through trees, tearing along pathways, whistling, wailing, snatching all other sound and racing off with it.

Leo was outside when he heard the gunshots. He was on his hands and knees, at the back of the house, being sick in the vegetable garden. He wasn’t drunk, just stoned. (Mea culpa, I’m afraid. He’d never smoked weed before; I probably shouldn’t have given him any.) After an initial semi-ecstatic experience—apparently involving a supernatural vision—he felt nauseous and started throwing up.

Just then, the wind sped toward him—hurling the sound straight at him: bang, bang, bang. Three gunshots, in quick succession.

Leo pulled himself up. As steadily as he could, he battled his way against the gale, in the direction of the gunfire—away from the house, along the path, through the olive grove, toward the ruin.

And there, in the clearing, sprawled on the ground . . . was a body.

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Why I love it

“We are all the unreliable narrators of our own lives.”

Are they giving all the facts? Are they who they say they are? An unreliable narrator is always a welcome surprise for me. As a reader, I love that feeling that I can’t trust my own intuitions. Alex Michaelides plays this game of deception with great finesse, and his latest narrator, Elliot Chase, is one of his most devilish creations.

The Fury is a bloody saga full of suggestive shadows and lies. But how did a simple Easter getaway come to all this? Lana Farrar, a reclusive ex–movie star, finds herself in a funk, so she invites friends and family to visit her personal island in Greece for the holiday. Tensions are high and everyone hopes for some much-needed R&R. Unfortunately, the island has other plans. A fierce storm blows in almost immediately. When its fury quells for a moment, it turns out a member of the party has been killed. As accusations fly, everyone tries to figure out who dealt the deathly blow and if they’re still out for blood. Along the way, readers’ attention and suspicions are pulled to and fro, and we come to realize our narrator and guide—Lana’s friend, Elliot—may not be giving everything to us straight.

As in his breakout hit, The Silent Patient, here Michaelides plays with reader psychology not just to raise the stakes but also to reveal essential truths about human nature. It makes for a potent and thrilling cocktail. Take a sip, I promise you won’t regret it.

Other books by Alex Michaelides

Member ratings (30,534)

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The Boyfriend
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First Lie Wins
House of Glass
Middle of the Night
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Only if You’re Lucky
The Other Mothers
When I’m Dead
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What Lies in the Woods
She Started It
The Only One Left
Dark Corners
Blacktop Wasteland
All the Dangerous Things
The Only Survivors
The Broken Girls
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The Push
We Were Never Here
Things We Do in the Dark
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The Collective
The Stranger Upstairs
Gone Tonight
Too Good to Be True
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You Are Not Alone
Rock Paper Scissors
Not a Happy Family
A Flicker in the Dark
The Last Flight
Reckless Girls
The House Across the Lake
The Wife Upstairs
The Last Thing He Told Me
The Maidens
Everything We Didn't Say
Invisible Girl
The Paris Apartment
You're Invited
The Last Party
Dark Places
Pieces of Her
The Wife Between Us
Sharp Objects
None of This Is True
The Silent Patient
The Winter Sister
The Other Woman
Necessary People
The Family Upstairs
The Night Swim
Girl A
The Hunting Wives
Just Another Missing Person
First Born
The Lies I Tell
Breathless
Thriller
View all
The Boyfriend
The Last One at the Wedding
Sleep Tight
First Lie Wins
House of Glass
Middle of the Night
Listen for the Lie
A Talent for Murder
Someone in the Attic
One Perfect Couple
Like Mother, Like Daughter
Darling Girls
Kill for Me, Kill for You
Bad Tourists
Murder Road
Daughter of Mine
The Fury
Only if You’re Lucky
The Other Mothers
When I’m Dead
The Soulmate
What Lies in the Woods
She Started It
The Only One Left
Dark Corners
Blacktop Wasteland
All the Dangerous Things
The Only Survivors
The Broken Girls
The Family Game
The Push
We Were Never Here
Things We Do in the Dark
The Golden Couple
The Collective
The Stranger Upstairs
Gone Tonight
Too Good to Be True
The Last Word
You Are Not Alone
Rock Paper Scissors
Not a Happy Family
A Flicker in the Dark
The Last Flight
Reckless Girls
The House Across the Lake
The Wife Upstairs
The Last Thing He Told Me
The Maidens
Everything We Didn't Say
Invisible Girl
The Paris Apartment
You're Invited
The Last Party
Dark Places
Pieces of Her
The Wife Between Us
Sharp Objects
None of This Is True
The Silent Patient
The Winter Sister
The Other Woman
Necessary People
The Family Upstairs
The Night Swim
Girl A
The Hunting Wives
Just Another Missing Person
First Born
The Lies I Tell
Breathless