Runtime
10h 40m
Release
08-06-21
Abridgement
Unabridged
Genre
Fiction/Thrillers
Overview
A New York Times Best Thriller of 2021
A Washington Post Best Thriller of 2021
A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year
An Amazon Editors’ Pick
''Bloody good.'' —The New York Times
''Timely, surprising, emotionally alive, this is about as good as suspense fiction gets.'' —Washington Post
No one even knew they were together. Now one of them is dead.
56 DAYS AGO
Ciara and Oliver meet in a supermarket queue in Dublin and start dating the same week COVID-19 reaches Irish shores.
35 DAYS AGO
When lockdown threatens to keep them apart, Oliver suggests they move in together. Ciara sees a unique opportunity for a relationship to flourish without the scrutiny of family and friends. Oliver sees a chance to hide who—and what—he really is.
TODAY
Detectives arrive at Oliver’s apartment to discover a decomposing body inside.
Can they determine what really happened, or has lockdown created an opportunity for someone to commit the perfect crime?
Editorial Reviews
“56 Days is a terrific novel written by an author who is certain to become a distinguished voice in crime fiction. You won’t want to stop reading until the very end.” —Karin Slaughter, New York Times and internationally bestselling author
“A twisty tale of suspense…Early on, readers realize that Ciara and Oliver aren’t going to make it as a pair…Through flashbacks and flash-forwards, Howard reveals how the two met (in the self-service checkout line at a Dublin supermarket), what secrets each is keeping from the other (and from themselves), and how trust in a new partner—especially at a time of intense isolation—can go wrong in the worst possible way. Howard also astutely conveys the vertiginous and abrupt changes that happened all those months ago. The novel is not, however, meant to be some kind of grand commentary on the pandemic, about the millions of lives lost and countries and societies upended. It’s a thriller, a bloody good one, that kept me guessing as I turned the pages at a furious clip.” —New York Times
“Howard has written an eerie, twisty story ripped from current headlines, in which a global pandemic becomes the foreboding hypotenuse of a dangerous love triangle.” —Library Journal
“I first fell in love with Howard’s writing in The Nothing Man and I jumped at the chance to read her latest. Even though I had a rough idea of what was going on with Ciara, I was still able to be surprised by the twist. I enjoyed the timeline jumps and the same story being told from both Ciara and Oliver’s perspectives. It gave a really rounded experience and reminds you that you don’t always get the whole story from one person. Perfect addition to your reading list!” —San Francisco Book Review
“As with Ms. Howard’s other thriller, The Nothing Man, this one is filled with a sense of foreboding from the first page. Nothing is as it seems, and yet everything is displayed in plain sight, if misinterpreted. 56 Days is a thriller with a heavy atmosphere of tension, set during a life-and-death time in our own contemporary history.” —New York Journal of Books
Author Biography
Catherine Ryan Howard is an internationally bestselling crime writer from Cork, Ireland. Her novel 56 Days was named a best thriller of 2021 by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Irish Times; was her second Irish number one bestseller; and won Crime Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. Her previous work has been shortlisted for the Edgar Award for Best Novel and the CWA’s John Creasey New Blood and Ian Fleming Steel Daggers, and she’s been shortlisted for the Irish Crime Novel of the Year multiple times. Her work has been published in seventeen languages, and a number of her novels have been optioned for screen. She lives in Dublin, where she currently divides her time between the desk and the couch.
Narrator Biography
Alana Kerr Collins is an Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator. She is also an actor, puppeteer, and singer who studied at the Impulse Company in London and earned a BA in drama and English at the University of Dublin, Trinity College. She starred in the short films Rachel 9000, The Deal, and Veritas and has appeared in several television series, including Emu and Big City Park.
