Penguin Picks

4 books in this series
#1 - Angels
#1 - Angels
'I'd always lived a fairly blameless life. Up until the day I left my husband and ran away to Hollywood . . .'

Unlike the rest of her family, Maggie Walsh has always done everything right. At thirty-three she has a proper job, is happily married to Garv and never puts a foot wrong. So why does she make a bolt for Hollywood and her best friend, Emily?

In the City of Angels, Maggie gets to do things she's never done before: mixing with film stars, pitching scripts, partying non-stop. But is this really a once-in-a-lifetime journey of self-discovery, or is she simply running away from married life?
#4 - Want to Play?
#4 - Want to Play?
In this electrifying debut, the slaying of an old couple in small town America looks like one-off act of brutal retribution. But at the same time, in Minneapolis, teams of detectives scramble to stop a sickeningly inventive serial killer striking again in a city paralysed by fear.

When the two separate investigations converge on an isolated Catholic boarding school, decades old secrets begin to fall away. It seems an old killer has resurfaced. Yet still their real identity remains dangerously out of reach ...
#6 - Mercy
#6 - Mercy
At first the prisoner scratches at the walls until her fingers bleed. But there is no escaping the room. With no way of measuring time, her days, weeks, months go unrecorded. She vows not to go mad. She will not give her captors the satisfaction. She will die first.

Copenhagen detective Carl Mørck has been taken off homicide to run a newly created department for unsolved crimes. His first case concerns Merete Lynggaard, who vanished five years ago. Everyone says she's dead. Everyone says it's a waste of time. He thinks they're right.

The voice in the dark is distorted, harsh and without mercy. It says the prisoner's torture will only end when she answers one simple question. It is one she has asked herself a million times:

WHY is this happening?
#8 - The Fry Chronicles
#8 - The Fry Chronicles
Spanning 1979-1987, The Fry Chronicles charts Stephen's arrival at Cambridge up to his thirtieth birthday.

'Heartbreaking, a delight, a lovely, comfy book' The Times

'Perfect prose and excruciating honesty. A grand reminiscence of college and theatre and comedyland in the 1980s, with tone-perfect anecdotes and genuine readerly excitement. What Fry does, essentially, is tell us who he really is. Above all else, a thoughtful book. And namedroppy too, and funny, and marbled with melancholy' Observer

'Arguably the greatest living Englishman' Independent on Sunday

'Extremely enjoyable' Sunday Times

'Fry's linguistic facility remains one of the Wildean wonders of the new media age. The patron saint of British intelligence' Daily Telegraph

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more