‘The Girl Who Stole the Apple’ by Peter Tickler

Published by Joffe Books,
10 October 2016.
ISBN: 978-1-911021-77-3

Peter Tickler’s fifth novel reveals a world where nothing and no one can be trusted.  At the heart of this rollercoaster-read is Beth, The Girl Who Stole the Apple, a child obsessed with make-believe worlds inhabited by Disney characters and children’s stories.  Beth, dressed as Snow White, twirls and skips onto the first page of the novel, a bizarre scene that triggers a series of unexpected and disconcerting events and  introduces the reader to another central character, Maggie Rogers, an old friend of Beth’s, now absent, mother.  Maggie soon realises that she must take responsibility for the young girl as the pair are threatened and then pursued across the country.  A malevolent web of intrigue and danger ensnares the hunters and the hunted as they move towards a final showdown that satisfies - but has a sting in the tail. 

The sustained tension and labyrinthine, but tightly constructed plot are features of Tickler’s writing.  The story entices, jolts and disorientates on almost every page as the reader is caught up in an increasingly frenzied Danse Macabre.   The Girl Who Stole The Apple is a superb read for those who, like me, enjoy surfing the waves of surprising twists and revelations, never quite knowing when, or whether, one will make it safely to shore. 

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Reviewer: Dot Marshall-Gent

  

Peter Tickler has lived and worked in Oxford for nearly 30 years, and before that he was a University student, reading classics at Keble College.  Peter is a member of the Crime Writer's Association and Mystery People group.

http://www.petertickler.co.uk/

Dot Marshall-Gent worked in the emergency services for twenty years first as a police officer, then as a paramedic and finally as a fire control officer before graduating from King’s College, London as a teacher of English in her mid-forties.  She completed a M.A. in Special and Inclusive Education at the Institute of Education, London and now teaches part-time and writes mainly about educational issues.  Dot sings jazz and country music and plays guitar, banjo and piano as well as being addicted to reading mystery and crime fiction.