Review
'Rupture is a brilliantly plotted detective story that kept me hooked. Lelic, once a journalist, writes crisp engaging prose in which every word counts... Taking the usual clichés of detective fiction, Lelic turns them on their head and arrives at a place of hope. A remarkable achievement.'
--New Books magazine
'There's a buzz in the publishing world about Simon Lelic's debut novel, Rupture... [Lelic] is set for literary stardom.' --The Times Magazine
'A powerful debut exploring the effects of institutionalised bullying... Lelic's spare prose and multi-voiced narrative make this a gripping, disturbing read.' --Marie Claire
'Great idea.' --Daily Mirror
'A superior detective novel, Rupture by Simon Lelic opens with a teacher who kills three pupils in assembly before turning the gun on himself, while the young policewoman Lucia May is set the task of finding out what led to such an awful act.' --Daily Express
'Rupture examines one of the great horrors of our times - the school shooting. Slowly, painfully, by means of brilliantly presented monologues and spare narration, the causes are revealed, and they are even more shocking. It's impossible to believe this is a first novel.'
--Donna Leon
'Set during a stultifying London heatwave, this is a disturbingly realistic, taut piece of writing.' --Guardian
'Artfully offering a range of perspectives on the events leading up to the fatal day, Lelic manages to make the murderer sympathetic as he sensitively explores the varying degrees of responsibility for the tragedy borne by others whose response to bullying was inadequate. This deeply human and moving book heralds a bright new talent.' --Publishers Weekly
'Rupture is a brooding and contemplative novel that serves as a damning indictment of the pernicious nature of bullying and the effect on its victims.'
--Waterstone's Books Quarterly
'A tour de force of storytelling from Picador.'
--Granta
'absorbing, convincing and truly frightening... Lelic manages to evoke in crisp, accessible prose what it's like to work in a modern school where bullying is rife. Perhaps most terrifying of all is the author's gift for characterisation... The narrative is gripping... Lelic's novel fuses the police procedural and school genres, twisting many familiar situations and characters into the stuff of chillingly realistic nightmares.' --The Times
'Lelic has an exceptional talent for voice. This talent means the reader is yanked into the narrative, and teased into persisting... Lelic can write like a poet... The pace is as ferocious as the subject, and some characters are expertly grotesque. Lelic's novel may be his first; but you wouldn't know it, it is so controlled, yet confidently reckless.' --Independent
'Packs a gutsy punch.'
--Daily Mail
`Rupture, it turns out, is not necessarily a crime novel but one which trenchantly addresses a host of issues: bullying, a lost generation of children at odds with society and the struggles of adults to come to terms with the cruelty in their own nature. It is a remarkable debut.' --Daily Express
`Simon Lelic's impressive and fast-paced debut borrows its structure from a standard police procedural, with a fish-out-of-water cop at its centre. . . What slowly emerges, however, is something more nuanced, as Lelic explores themes of bullying and complicity, taking swipes at the increasing commercialisation of Britain's state-school system along the way. An artful study of what theologians might term `the sin of omission', Rupture keeps readers guessing until the end.'
--Financial Times
**** `Simon Lelic's gripping debut is draped in this torn social fabric . . . we are skilfully drawn into the plot by the competing voices . . . I see a TV film on the horizon.'
--Time Out
'Lelic's first novel is impressive in its scope and structural daring. A third-person narrative inhabiting Lucia's mind alternates with first-person eyewitness accounts, and Lelic superbly captures the wildly different vocabularies and rhythms of speech of parents, teachers and pupils. This is a superior detective novel, proof that crime fiction can break free of the bounds of the genre into something much more complex.'
--Daily Telegraph
`Just confident and accomplished . . . [Lelic] captures the different tones of characters' voices brilliantly and the novel is a cool, controlled view of various kinds of institutionalised cruelty and corruption . . . his restraint is admirable and Rupture has none of the common self indulgences of debut novels. He is definitely a writer to watch.'
--Spectator
--New Books magazine
'There's a buzz in the publishing world about Simon Lelic's debut novel, Rupture... [Lelic] is set for literary stardom.' --The Times Magazine
'A powerful debut exploring the effects of institutionalised bullying... Lelic's spare prose and multi-voiced narrative make this a gripping, disturbing read.' --Marie Claire
'Great idea.' --Daily Mirror
'A superior detective novel, Rupture by Simon Lelic opens with a teacher who kills three pupils in assembly before turning the gun on himself, while the young policewoman Lucia May is set the task of finding out what led to such an awful act.' --Daily Express
'Rupture examines one of the great horrors of our times - the school shooting. Slowly, painfully, by means of brilliantly presented monologues and spare narration, the causes are revealed, and they are even more shocking. It's impossible to believe this is a first novel.'
--Donna Leon
'Set during a stultifying London heatwave, this is a disturbingly realistic, taut piece of writing.' --Guardian
'Artfully offering a range of perspectives on the events leading up to the fatal day, Lelic manages to make the murderer sympathetic as he sensitively explores the varying degrees of responsibility for the tragedy borne by others whose response to bullying was inadequate. This deeply human and moving book heralds a bright new talent.' --Publishers Weekly
'Rupture is a brooding and contemplative novel that serves as a damning indictment of the pernicious nature of bullying and the effect on its victims.'
--Waterstone's Books Quarterly
'A tour de force of storytelling from Picador.'
--Granta
'absorbing, convincing and truly frightening... Lelic manages to evoke in crisp, accessible prose what it's like to work in a modern school where bullying is rife. Perhaps most terrifying of all is the author's gift for characterisation... The narrative is gripping... Lelic's novel fuses the police procedural and school genres, twisting many familiar situations and characters into the stuff of chillingly realistic nightmares.' --The Times
'Lelic has an exceptional talent for voice. This talent means the reader is yanked into the narrative, and teased into persisting... Lelic can write like a poet... The pace is as ferocious as the subject, and some characters are expertly grotesque. Lelic's novel may be his first; but you wouldn't know it, it is so controlled, yet confidently reckless.' --Independent
'Packs a gutsy punch.'
--Daily Mail
`Rupture, it turns out, is not necessarily a crime novel but one which trenchantly addresses a host of issues: bullying, a lost generation of children at odds with society and the struggles of adults to come to terms with the cruelty in their own nature. It is a remarkable debut.' --Daily Express
`Simon Lelic's impressive and fast-paced debut borrows its structure from a standard police procedural, with a fish-out-of-water cop at its centre. . . What slowly emerges, however, is something more nuanced, as Lelic explores themes of bullying and complicity, taking swipes at the increasing commercialisation of Britain's state-school system along the way. An artful study of what theologians might term `the sin of omission', Rupture keeps readers guessing until the end.'
--Financial Times
**** `Simon Lelic's gripping debut is draped in this torn social fabric . . . we are skilfully drawn into the plot by the competing voices . . . I see a TV film on the horizon.'
--Time Out
'Lelic's first novel is impressive in its scope and structural daring. A third-person narrative inhabiting Lucia's mind alternates with first-person eyewitness accounts, and Lelic superbly captures the wildly different vocabularies and rhythms of speech of parents, teachers and pupils. This is a superior detective novel, proof that crime fiction can break free of the bounds of the genre into something much more complex.'
--Daily Telegraph
`Just confident and accomplished . . . [Lelic] captures the different tones of characters' voices brilliantly and the novel is a cool, controlled view of various kinds of institutionalised cruelty and corruption . . . his restraint is admirable and Rupture has none of the common self indulgences of debut novels. He is definitely a writer to watch.'
--Spectator
Product Description
A stunning debut from a truly original new voice in contemporary fiction
Book Description
‘Find what you were looking for, Inspector?’ Every day the same question. A different uniform but the same question. They thought Lucia enjoyed being here. They thought that was why she kept coming back. But they were asking the wrong thing. She had found what she was looking for – she had found what she had been sent to discover – but she had found out more besides. The question was what to do about it. The question was whether to do anything at all. In the depths of a sweltering summer, teacher Samuel Szajkowski walks into his school assembly and opens fire. He kills three pupils and a colleague before turning the gun on himself. Lucia May, the young policewoman who is assigned the case, is expected to wrap up things quickly and without fuss. The incident is a tragedy that could not have been predicted and Szajkowski, it seems clear, was a psychopath beyond help. Soon, however, Lucia becomes preoccupied with the question no one else seems to want to ask: what drove a mild-mannered, diffident school teacher to commit such a despicable crime? Piecing together the testimonies of the teachers and children at the school, Lucia discovers an uglier, more complex picture of the months leading up to the shooting. She realises too that she has more in common with Szajkowski than she could have imagined. As the pressure to bury the case builds, she becomes determined to tell the truth about what happened, whatever the consequences . . .
About the Author
Simon Lelic has worked as a journalist and currently runs his own business. He was born in Brighton in 1976 and recently returned with his family to live there. 'Rupture' is his first novel.
