The Distance - by Helen Giltrow (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Charlotte Alton is an elegant London socialite. But behind the locked doors of her sleek, fortified apartment, she becomes Karla, a fixer who specializes in creating and erasing identities, and can cover any criminal's tracks. Only a few people in the world know her secret.

One of them is Simon Johanssen, a killer-for-hire who resurfaces--years after she helped him to quietly disappear--with an impossible job. He needs access to a high-security, experimental prison colony in order to assassinate an inmate. The catch: there's no record of the target's existence, and what's worse, the criminal boss from whom he's been hiding is inside, too. The trap has been set, but who is the real target--Johanssen or Karla herself?

Review Quotes

"Fast, hard, and very, very good."
--Lee Child, internationally bestselling author of the Jack Reacher thrillers

"This page-turning novel gives the term thriller a good name. . . . While I was reading it I frequently had to remind myself to breathe."
--Nancy Pearl, NPR Books

"Satisfyingly high-concept. . . . A hair-raising expedition into a dark world of layered duplicities, captured with stylish prose and a breakneck pace."
--Chris Pavone, New York Times bestselling author of The Expats and The Accident

"A riveting debut." --Publishers Weekly

"A truly unusual thriller. . . . Original and thought-provoking." --The Sunday Mirror (UK)

About the Author

Helen Giltrow is a former bookseller and freelance editor whose writing has been shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger Award and the Daily Telegraph's Novel in a Year Competition in the United Kingdom. She lives in Oxford, England.