Death is a Welcome Guest (PLAGUE TIMES TRILOGY) - Softcover

Welsh, Louise

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1848546564 ISBN 13: 9781848546561

Publisher: John Murray, 2016

Synopsis

Longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year

Magnus McFall was a comic on the brink of his big break when the world came to an end. Now, he is a man on the run and there is nothing to laugh about.

Thrown into unwilling partnership with an escaped convict, Magnus flees the desolation of London to make the long journey north, clinging to his hope that the sickness has not reached his family on their remote Scottish island.

He finds himself in a landscape fraught with danger, fighting for his place in a world ruled by men, like his fellow traveller Jeb - practical men who do not let pain or emotions interfere with getting the job done.

This is a world with its own justice, and new rules.
Where people, guns and food are currency.
Where survival is everything.

Death is a Welcome Guest defies you to put it down, and leaves you with questions that linger in the mind long after you read the last page.

About this title

About the Author:

Louise Welsh is the author of six highly acclaimed novels including The Cutting Room and, most recently, A Lovely Way to Burn. She has been the recipient of several awards. Death is a Welcome Guest is the second novel in the Plague Times trilogy.

Visit Louise's website for more information: www.louisewelsh.com

Review:

A cracking story and with the way that the author brings it over to the reader, quickly draws them into the world. The dialogue works wonderfully well but, for me, the best part was the principle character; I loved the way that he was accessible for readers . . . hard to put down―Falcata Times

[Louise Welsh] is indeed a canny writer and knows when a theme or story line is about to outstay its welcome in our imaginations. Before that happens the tale shifts a gear and the excitement builds to a higher pitch . . . As for the Sweats, well, we are about to enter a drug resistant era and the last Black Death episode in the UK was only in 1900. Food for thought while we await Book 3 with anticipation, fear and gleeful foreboding―Bookbag

Welsh brilliantly summons up a tough world of terror, desperation and dog-eat-dog survival―Metro

The second volume of Welsh's disturbing dystopian trilogy makes for grim but compelling reading―Scotsman

The second of Louise Welsh's Plague Times trilogy, set in a dystopian England ravaged by the Sweats pandemic, is as grippingly intelligent and atmospheric as the first, which is saying a great deal . . . But the novel is far more than a modern-day plague-ridden whodunnit. The theme of justice and belief amid chaos is accompanied by superb dialogue and an overpowering mood of moral and medical decay―The Times

Magnus and Job ride out of the city and deep in the countryside discover a murder has occurred - straight from the pages of Agatha Christie, for the setting is an isolated group in a manor house . . . The plot gallops along while the writing crackles with the sights and smells of a sharply imagined world . . . this book, the second in [Welsh's] Plague Times trilogy, left me hungry for volume three―Independent

Louise Welsh uses her story to examine where the cracks are in our society and most especially to look at human nature in both its good and bad forms giving a lot of pause for thought on what might happen should the worst happen . . . I am going to be very interested to see how the author completes the trilogy - will both these tales merge or will there be another completely different viewpoint? No idea but can't wait to find out . . . this is shaping up to be a really great trilogy, one that will stay with me. I cannot wait for the finale―LizLovesBooks

If you're a fan of the BBC series, Survivors, either Terry Nation's thoroughly gripping original from the 1970s or Adrian Hodges' extremely creditable reimagining of a few years ago, then this is a series you mustn't miss . . . Death is a Welcome Guest is a bleak, no holds barred look at a rapidly-disintegrating society, slipping inexorably back into the sort of devastation last seen in the 14th century when the Black Death cut a swathe across Europe, leaving millions dead. Like the first in the trilogy, this book poses the question as to whether one more death amongst a host of others has any meaning . . . With the threat of the ebola virus a constant companion these days in the media, the book makes uncomfortable but always wholly engrossing reading. This is post-apocalyptic story-telling at its very best―Crimereview

I wasn't sure what to expect from the ending given the fast pace of the last few chapters, but I absolutely loved it and now can't wait for the final instalment in the trilogy―Welsh Librarian

By turns social satire, prison-break tale, road novel and study of a disintegrating cult, [an] adventurous, shape-shifting book―Sunday Times

About this edition

• Publisher: John Murray
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1848546564
• ISBN 13: 9781848546561
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384