Heatwave: An Evening Standard 'Best New Book' of 2021

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The 2022 Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Dagger awards longlists have been revealed with Paula Hawkins, Mark Billingham, Janice Hallett and John Banville among the chosen. L’atmosfera del campeggio, la musica martellante sparata dagli altoparlanti, gli annunci ripetuti, gli animatori ossessivi, il senso di perenne festa, la vacanza che impone il divertimento a ogni costo… Niente di questo aiuta Léonard, che appare sempre più un pesce fuori dall’acqua. The Clifton Vampire’ by TE Kinsey in Afraid of the Shadows edited by Miranda Jewess (Criminal Minds) You devour this book, but its effects linger, so strongly does it reverberate with destinies sacrificed to the yawn of the void’ Le Point If so, could Leo be an unreliable narrator and, like in Camus’ novel, the death that occurs is a murder - did Leo actually murder Oscar, because he was jealous of his being with Luce, the girl he fancies, and Leo distanced himself from the crime like he distances himself from everything else in his life, pretending the swings killed him instead? It would explain the bizarre choice of not alerting anyone to Oscar’s accidental death and implicating himself unnecessarily.

Heatwave | Victor Jestin | 9781471199776 | NetGalley Heatwave | Victor Jestin | 9781471199776 | NetGalley

A beautiful narrative that puts into play the kind of guilt that won’t quit a boy who’s alienated from his world and resistant to all its codes’ Telerama The CWA Dagger shortlists will be announced on 13th May at CrimeFest . The awards ceremony will be held at the Leonardo City hotel in London on 29th June, coinciding with National Crime Reading Month. The 2022 Diamond Dagger, awarded to an author whose crime-writing career has been marked by sustained excellence, has already been announced as going to C J Sansom. Peter Papathanasiou’s The Stoning (MacLehose) is also in contention, with another appearance on the New Blood Dagger for the best debut novel. William Shaw’s The Trawlerman (riverrun), Laura Shepherd-Robinson’s Daughters of Night (Mantle), Rosalind Stopps’ A Beginner’s Guide to Murder (HQ) and Joe Thomas’ Brazilian Psycho (Arcadia) complete the longlist for the Gold Dagger. And that’s about all I can say without revealing too much. It’s a good story, though slightly far-fetched at times. It certainly will be a summer none of the campers will ever forget!The young author of this first novel keeps all promises, with writing of a rare precision, mature and carnal... Moving and cinematic.”— La Vie Told over the space of a long weekend, this intense and brilliant novel is the story of an adolescent struggling to fit in. Heatwave is a gripping psychological thriller that poses the existential question: At 25, Victor Jestin has written a Sagan-like novel. A Francoise Sagan of today under high heat, in the full sense of the word.”— Le Parisien Dimanche Victor Jestin's debut novella centers around the question why Léo didn't stop Oscar, and why he didn't report what he saw and hid the corpse instead. It's all about the complexity of human nature and the atmosphere that is determined by the different associations with heat. I really enjoyed how the author insists on the enigmatic nature of the case he describes, how he doesn't take the easy route, how he brings the place to life and contrasts teenage impulses. At 25, Victor Jestin has written a Sagan-like novel. A Francoise Sagan of today under high heat, in the full sense of the word’ Le Parisien Dimanche

The Bookseller - News - Hawkins, Billingham, Hallett and

Other writers on the prestigious 20-strong list include Kia Abdullah for Next of Kin (HQ), Alexandra Benedict for The Christmas Murder Game (Zaffre), DV Bishop for City of Vengeance (Macmillan), Jacqueline Bublitz for Before You Knew My Name (Sphere) and SA Cosby for Razorblade Tears (Headline), which is also up for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger. With a searing voice, Victor Jestin captures the stale air of tents, the cheap music, the guys disguised in pink bunny suits who force you to have fun, teenagers as poignant as they are idiotic, rage, desire, absurdity. In effect, scorching.”— GraziaThe references to the heat don’t only add to the atmosphere, Jestin also uses it to reference global warming and our ignorance of the climate crisis: “Every year it got hot earlier – this year it had been in February – and we had welcomed it without fear, happy to see the end of winter; we’d sat out on café terraces with no sense of foreboding about what it might mean. We didn’t sense the inferno coming. I wondered what temperature would finally be too hot.”