The Silence Between Breaths - Softcover

An intelligent and emotionally engaging moral workout * Daily Telegraph * For her insistence on looking real life squarely in the face, I would call Staincliffe the most grown-up writer in British crime fiction . . . her novel is mercilessly exciting * Jake Kerridge, Daily Telegraph * An emotionally engaging thriller * Metro * Paradoxically, it's their very ordinariness that gets you involved in the lives and concerns of a random group of train travellers, before the tension ramps up and a routine journey takes a shocking twist. You'll want to read it in one sitting * Sunday Times Crime Club * Cath Staincliffe gets into the heads of ordinary people and makes them extraordinary. Her power is in the small detail that builds tension and forces us to care about the characters she's created. The Silence Between Breaths will haunt you. You will find yourself thinking: what would I have done in that situation? As harrowing as it is powerful * Sunday Mirror * Cath Staincliffe's writing is so utterly real - and virtually invisible - that the reader experiences the shocking as vividly as the ordinary. -- Sarah Proctor * Myweekly.co.uk * Complex and satisfying * Sunday Times * Cath Staincliffe gets into the heads of ordinary people and makes them extraordinary. Her power is in the small detail that builds tension and forces us to care about the characters she's created. The Silence Between Breaths will haunt you. You will find yourself thinking: what would I have done in that situation? -- Ann Cleeves [A] powerful, thoughtful ensemble novel about a terror attack and its legacy ... Harrowing and humane. A real knockout -- Ian Rankin

Eight strangers. One deadly secret. Passengers boarding the 10.35 train from Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston are bound for work, assignations, reunions, holidays or new starts, with no idea that their journey is about to be brutally curtailed. Holly has just landed her dream job, which should make life a lot easier than it has been, and Jeff is heading for his first ever work interview after months of unemployment. They end up sitting next to each other. Onboard customer service assistant Naz dreams of better things as he collects rubbish from the passengers. And among the others travelling are Nick with his young family who are driving him crazy; pensioner Meg and her partner setting off on a walking holiday and facing an uncertain future; Caroline, run ragged by the competing demands of her stroppy teenage children and her demented mother; and Rhona, unhappy at work and desperate to get home to her small daughter. And in the middle of the carriage sits Saheel, carrying a deadly rucksack . . . How do you survive the unthinkable?