Little Face [Paperback]

'Sophie Hannah is a real star.' (P J Kavanagh in the Daily Telegraph )

'Sophie Hannah's comic fiction produces reams of entertaining moral sophistry. Her novels sparkle.' (Independent )

'Hannah has a keen ear for her characters' foibles, snobberies and hypocrisies, and the observation remains acute throughout.' (Observer )

'This may well turn out to be the detective novel of the year . . . So develops a terrifying mystery of manipulation, counter-manipulation and, finally, astounding revelation - it's a haunting story told with bewitching skill'

(Scotsman )

'The author is a poet by trade and she brings a wealth of psychological and literary subtlety to bear in this impressive novel. Smart and disarmingly unnerving.'

(Daily Mail )

'Hannah adapts to crime fiction with arresting aplomb: her characters are vivid, the novel's challenging double narrative is handled with flair, and its denouement is ingenious'

(The Sunday Times )

'LITTLE FACE is that most fascinating and intelligent of modern crime novels: rather than a whodunit, it escalates from a how-and-whydunit to a point where the reader is unsure if a crime has been committed at all . . . Hannah never deviates from her intention: to deliver a gripping crime story of the first order, loaded with subtext and meaning.'

(Leeds Guide )

'Hannah's whodunit milks a classic formula with subversive results. This missing-baby tale chimes with very modern anxieties. Custody issues lie at the heart of the resolution, and the increasingly perverse relationship between Alice and David is grounded in recognisable reality that serves only to make our flesh crawl more.'

(Emma Hagestadt, Independent )

'I do not really want to discuss this thriller. I do not want to give away any of the quite brilliant twists to those who may not have read LITTLE FACE or have not yet finished it. So, you will just have to take my word, and that of those who mailed the Books group, that Sophie Hannah delivers as good a finale as any crime writer. I was extremely impressed.'

(Alyson Rudd, The Times )

'Intriguing. Hannah's depiction of releationships tested to the limit by domestic tragedy is impressive.'

(Simon Shaw, Mail on Sunday )

'A gripping psychological thriller'

(Independent on Sunday )

'It's chilling and completely gripping - I stayed up all night to finish it.'

(Emily Barr, bestselling author of Cuban Heels and Plan B )

'This taut psychological thriller is full of heart-thumping suspense'

'A chilling thriller...I was left thinking about the book for days'

'Hannah's whodunit milks a classic formula with subversive
results. This missing-baby tale chimes with very modern anxieties.'

'A suspensful and psychological thriller, the plot twists and
turns right up until the very last.'

'Quite brilliant twists...Sophie Hannah delivers as good a finale as any
crime writer. I was extremely impressed.'

She's only been gone two hours.

Her husband David was meant to be looking after their two-week-old daughter. But when Alice Fancourt walks into the nursery, her terrifying ordeal begins, for Alice insists the baby in the cot is a stranger she's never seen before.

With an increasingly hostile and menacing David swearing she must either be mad or lying, how can Alice make the police believe her before it's too late?

I wrote 'Little Face' shortly after my first child was born. I was in hospital for four days trying to persuade her to come out, so when she finally emerged I was absolutely exhausted! The midwife offered to take my daughter and look after her overnight so that I could get some rest - an offer I quickly agreed to, but then I found I couldn't sleep, so I tiptoed out on to the dark, quiet, night-time ward to get my daughter back. But when I tried to take the baby the midwife was holding, a baby who, like my daughter, was wrapped in a standard green hospital blanket, the midwife said, 'What are you doing? That's not your daughter!' She then pointed to a glass cot by her side that contained another baby, and of course I recognised my daughter at once. But it started me thinking about how odd it is that you can be someone's closest relative and yet not be entirely familiar with their face, that it's possible to be uncertain, even for a few seconds, about whether a baby is or isn't yours. This was how the idea for 'Little Face' was born. The book is a psychological suspense novel - which has always been my favourite kind of crime fiction - about a woman who goes out for the first time without her child, and when she comes home, she insists that the baby she finds in the care of her husband is not their daughter. Her husband swears that it is, and accuses her of lying, or of having gone mad, and the police are summoned. And shortly afterwards, she and the baby go missing...
I love mystery novels in which the reader cannot even begin to work out what might have happened, what the explanation might be. I think they're much more interesting than novels in which you know from the start exactly what crime has been committed and it's just a question of working out which of the suspect-motive-opportunity combinations is the correct one. I also love novels that force you to stay up until two in the morning because you're so desperate to finish them, and I hope that I've succeeded in making 'Little Face' as gripping as possible. I believe grippingness (for want of a better word!) is the single most important quality a novel should have.

She's only been gone two hours. Her husband David was supposed
to be looking after their two-week-old daughter. But when Alice Fancourt
walks into the nursery, her terrifying ordeal begins, for Alice insists the
baby in the cot is a stranger she's never seen before.

With an increasingly hostile and menacing David swearing she must either be
mad or lying, how can Alice make the police believe her before it's too
late?

A chilling psychological thriller about the lengths to which a mother will
go to save her child, Little Face is impossible to put down: a stunning
novel from a hugely talented author.

Sophie Hannah is a bestselling poet, a novelist and a childrens writer. She has won awards for her short stories and for her poetry, including first prize in the 2004 Daphne Du Maurier Festival Short Story Competition. In June 2004 she was chosen for the Next Generation poetry promotion as one of the best twenty poets to emerge in the last ten years.

She has won several awards for her poetry, which is studied at GCSE, A-level and degree level across the UK. She was Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge, and a fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. She is thirty-three and lives in West Yorkshire with her husband and two children.