Displeasure Island

'Warm, smart and laugh-out-loud funny' Andrea Mara 'Delightful' Stuart Turton 'Alice Bell writes with real verve' Janice Hallett Group holidays are always murder... An unfinished wellness retreat was not Claire's first choice of holiday destination, but it turns out that amateur murder investigation pays even less well than professional mediumship. So Claire, her oldest friend Sophie (a 17-year-old ghost) and their new friends, Basher and Alex, head for Spike Island (off the coast of Ireland) for some R&R. But when one of the other guests turns up dead, Claire finds herself the chief suspect. Can she solve the murder, clear her name and escape the group holiday from hell before it becomes permanent incarceration?

Alice Bell grew up in South West England, in the sort of middle-of-nowhere where teenagers spend their weekends drinking Smirnoff Ice in a field that also has at least one horse in it. She is the deputy editor of Rock Paper Shotgun, a popular PC gaming website, and in 2019 she was named one of the 100 most influential women in the UK games industry. After spending several years in London, Alice now lives in Cork in Ireland. She has probably read more detective fiction and watched more episodes of Midsomer Murders than is sensible. Her debut novel, Grave Expectations, was selected for the BBC Radio 2 Book Club. Displeasure Island is her second novel.