There are some books that totally immerse you, and this is one of them. Cassie loses herself in her undercover role, and I was happily lost along with her. The life of the group of university friends is so well drawn, and so idyllic, that you wish you were part of it too - except that one of them probably murdered another one. That tension is always singing in the background like a struck glass, even as Cassie becomes ever more comfortable in her adopted life. It's a long book, but it never felt over-long. I wanted to know whodunnit (and why!) but I didn't want the story to end.
Still traumatised by her brush with a psychopath, Detective Cassie Maddox transfers out of the Murder squad and starts a relationship with fellow detective Sam O'Neill. When he calls her to the scene of his new case, she is shocked to find that the murdered girl is her double. What's more, her ID shows she is Lexie Madison - the identity Cassie used, years ago, as an undercover detective. With no leads, no suspects and no clues to Lexie's real identity, Cassie's old boss spots the opportunity of a lifetime: send Cassie undercover in her place, to tempt the killer…
I only discovered this book because it was shelved wrongly in the bookshop - a serendipity that feels appropriate, given the plot! Like most writers and readers, I'm a sucker for a book about books or libraries or bookshops, but I often find them a bit soppy or twee. This one is not twee! A fantasy that reads like a thriller - at times a very gritty one. So many twists and turns, but everything coming together perfectly in the end. And it also manages to be a meditation on regret that made me bawl my eyes out over the last two chapters. Beautiful, cathartic and not at all twee.
This is the story of Facebook, and of how it shapes our reality - not just making us more divided and intolerant of difference, but even causing real-life massacres and changing the course of elections. Meta is probably more powerful than your government, and with none of the accountability.
"Careless People" is a quote from The Great Gatsby (one of my favourite novels) about Tom and Daisy Buchanan, who "smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness." In the same way, the founders of Facebook chose to "move fast and break things" regardless of the consequences, even when people's lives, livelihoods and liberty were the things being broken.
The story is told by a former employee of Facebook who assumed at first that Facebook would want to face its responsibilities, and later that she could make it better from the inside, before finally giving up and writing a tell-all. Some of her stories have real sticking power, like when she tries to explain to Mark Zuckerberg, on his private jet, that yes, Facebook did swing the election in Trump's favour. Or when they send her, heavily pregnant, into an unstable country with no translator and no way to contact anyone. Or when she has to continue working while she is in labour. Or when an executive orders her to take a nap - with her. I could go on, but just read all the jawdropping stories yourself.
A 2025 best book of the year so far by The New York Times, The Economist, NPR, and more
“Careless People is darkly funny and genuinely shocking...Not only does [Sarah Wynn-Williams] have the storytelling chops to unspool a gripping narrative; she also delivers the goods." -Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times
“When one of the world's most powerful media companies tries to snuff out a book ― amid other alarming attacks on free speech in America like this ― it's time to pull out all the stops.” –Ron Charles, The Washington Post
Will hates his job as a blacksmith's apprentice, until he find out by chance that one of his customers is a highwayman.
Joining the robber gang brings wealth, new friends and adventure - everything a boy could dream of. But when people he cares about start getting hurt, Will discovers that it is easier to enter a life of crime than to leave it.
He got into it for the money. Can he get out with his life?
