The Golden Rule

Longlisted for the Women's Prize 2021

A Times, Sunday Times, Observer, Daily Mail and Financial Times Best Book of 2020 Pick

'A highly enjoyable story about female resilience and finding fulfilment on your own terms' Sunday Times

'An irresistible summer read' Guardian Book of the Day

'A typically sharp and hugely satisfying page-turner' Daily Mail

She's such a skilful storyteller' Bernardine Evaristo

When Hannah is invited into the First-Class carriage of the London to Penzance train by Jinni, she walks into a spider's web. Now a poor young single mother, Hannah once escaped Cornwall to go to university. But once she married Jake and had his child, her dreams were crushed into bitter disillusion. Her husband has left her for Eve, rich and childless, and Hannah has been surviving by becoming a cleaner in London. Jinni is equally angry and bitter, and in the course of their journey the two women agree to murder each other's husbands. After all, they are strangers on a train - who could possibly connect them?

But when Hannah goes to Jinni's husband's home the next night, she finds Stan, a huge, hairy, ugly drunk who has his own problems - not least the care of a half-ruined house and garden. He claims Jinni is a very different person to the one who has persuaded Hannah to commit a terrible crime. Who is telling the truth - and who is the real victim?

Praise for Amanda Craig

'Terrific, page-turning, slyly funny' India Knight
'As satisfying a novel as I have read in years' Sarah Perry
'Amanda Craig is one of the most brilliant and entertaining novelists now working in Britain' Alison Lurie

Genre: Literary Fiction

"Wide-ranging, ambitious, socially panoramic...Amanda Craig anatomies the state of the nation with wit and empathy." - Jonathan Coe