Glen Affric: A Novel

by Karine Giebel

Overview

Bestselling French author of psychological suspense Karine Giebel makes her American debut with this dark and haunting novel about the unbreakable bond between two brothers, both treated unfairly by the world—for fans of Karin Slaughter and Stieg Larsson.

“I’m so stupid. I barely have a brain at all.” Léonard knows he isn’t like the other kids in his class, and he understands all too well that the world can be relentlessly cruel to those who are different. Sometimes Léo wishes he could go far away, to beautiful Glen Affric in the Scottish Highlands—where his fierce older brother, Jorge, lives. He dreams of being reunited with Jorge, who will protect him from the torments of his daily life.

But sometimes dreams can turn into nightmares . . .

Loosely inspired by John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, Glen Affric is a profound story about differences, friendship, and the power of love to withstand abuse and oppression—a story that plunges us into the darkest recesses of the human soul and introduces us to characters we’ll never forget.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063393929
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/29/2024
Pages:	720
Product dimensions:	5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.26(d)

About the Author

Karine Giebel is the award-winning author of thirteen novels, of which Glen Affric and the most recent. Her novels have been translated into twelve languages and have sold more than two million copies. She lives in the south of France.

Editorial Reviews

The characters . . . are inarguably vivid on the page. . . . Transporting.” — Booklist

"Tense—and with a surprising sweetness in the relationship between the brothers.” — Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2024-08-30
The American debut from French writer Giebel is a solid if straight-ahead suspense novel about two brothers whom gross injustice seeks out again and again.

Léonard (his name a wink to Steinbeck’sOf Mice and Men) is a large, powerful, sweet-tempered teen who’s relentlessly bullied and taken advantage of because of certain intellectual disabilities. Léonard was a foundling, discovered battered and bruised in a ditch and taken in at age 5 by kind, heartbroken Mona. The boy’s favorite keepsake is a postcard from Glen Affric, Scotland, where he’s been led to believe his brother, Jorge, Mona’s beloved elder son, lives. But Glen Affric is a cover story. Jorge has been convicted of two murders he didn’t commit, and for 16 years he’s been in prison, a status that has cemented the family’s status as shunned and despised outsiders in their town. On the day when Jorge is paroled, Léonard lands in prison himself, briefly but disastrously, after—not knowing his strength—he defends himself too vigorously and injures his tormentors. Léonard emerges from lockup psychologically and physically wounded, and he’s bewildered and upset to learn where Jorge has been. But the vulnerable brothers soon grow close, and as the horrors and injustices continue to mount, they grow ever closer. Jorge is on parole, under constant threat of being returned to prison if he loses his job or responds to the townspeople’s taunts, abuses, provocations. Framed for theft and fired once, he takes on lucrative illicit work and acquires, just in case, a bug-out bag, which he and Léonard bury in the backyard. The reader knows it cannot stay buried for long. Sure enough, Jorge is framed for another murder—of the woman he loves, a restaurateur he felt forced to break up with in order to spare her business and her reputation. The novel, a bit slow to launch, picks up major momentum around its midpoint, when the brothers kidnap a somewhat sympathetic cop and go on the run. The book, and the brothers, are headed to a destination and a denouement that seem predetermined, but Giebel delivers them and us to the rendezvous with some panache.

Not twisty or unexpected, but tense—and with a surprising sweetness in the relationship between the brothers.

Kirkus Reviews