Synopsis

Tom is grieving for his girlfriend. Her powerful family, convinced he is responsible for her death, place a bounty on his head. On the run, Tom seeks refuge in the Bothy, a dilapidated moorland pub run by ageing gangster Frank. Tom tries to keep the bounty a secret, but news travels fast, even in the middle of nowhere.

Trevor Mark Thomas’s first novel is a tense, violent drama involving desperate characters with little to lose apart from their lives. Amid moments of black humour and rare tenderness, buried fears and rivalries rise to the surface, creating an atmosphere of claustrophobia that builds to almost unbearable levels.

Praise for this Book

‘An absorbing debut – delightfully taut – a tender, gruesome villain at its heart.’ —Joe Stretch

Reviews of this Book

‘4/4 The Bothy is a confident debut novel, exciting and fast paced, an exhilarating read. It is also a very subtle exploration of grief, betrayal, love and loyalty, a thriller with real depth … Shovels, frost bite, guns, gangs, and cracked pipes all feature in this clever ensemble piece. The moorland pub at the dead of winter, hinting at horror, is a cracking setting. Tom begins to realise that it’s out of the frying pan into the fire! He will need all the guile and strength he can muster, and one or two friends, if he is to survive The Bothy.’ —Paul Burke, NB Magazine

‘The Bothy is horribly engrossing: a blackly comic gangster horror that reads like a northern cousin of Ben Wheatley’s Down Terrace. Its cast of strangely ambivalent villains will linger in your mind. And if you've never tasted pickled egg before, you certainly won't want to after reading this.’ —Gregory Norminton

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Trevor Mark Thomas

The Bothy

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