Standouts include ... Conner Habib's Hawk Mountain, a paranoid and unsettling tale of masculinity in crisis.

Guardian, 'The best crime and thriller books of 2022'

Conner Habib's Hawk Mountain was one of the most impressive debuts of the year. Set in New England, it explores the long-term consequences of bullying as Todd, now in his 30s, and the father of a young boy, encounters his high school nemesis, although the inevitable reckoning is as innovative as it is poignant.

Irish Times, 'The best crime fiction of 2022'

Habib ramps the paranoia up to Highsmithian levels

Guardian

Dripping with menace from the first page, this story of childhood enemies meeting up fifteen years later is utterly enthralling. Brilliantly written with homoerotic undertones, this savage tale is uncompromising in its reflection of teen friendships and isolation, and unflinching in its examination of the delicacy of the human body. There is gold among the gore. I found it compelling, shocking, and beautiful.

Liz Nugent

Conner Habib writes with an hallucinatory precision, and a kind of merciless humanity, about the poisonous work of repression. His forebears-Poe, Highsmith, even classical tragedy-are clear, but his originality is clearer still. Hawk Mountain is a work of strange, glittering darkness.

Mark O’Connell

The opening lines of Hawk Mountain plumet you into an atmosphere of creeping dread and precarious restraint that won't let up until the final, shocking moments.

Caitlin Doughty, bestselling author of SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES

Hawk Mountain is a suspenseful, shocking and ultimately poignant study of anguished conflict, both domestic and internal. Incisively written and intensely imagined, it's the novelistic debut of a real original.

Ramsey Campbell

Conner Habib's debut novel is a bleak, dark adrenaline rush.

Clive Barker

Brilliant...highly recommended

Sunday Times

'Stakes a serious claim for best crime fiction debut of the year ... Quietly powerful, devoid of gimmickry and grandiose gestures, Hawk Mountain announces the arrival of an impressive new talent on the crime fiction scene'.

Irish Times