Winner of the An Post Irish Book Awards 2021 Crime Fiction Book of the Year

A Book of the Year for 2021 in the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Irish Times
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** THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER **

'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?

'Terrific ... you won't want to stop reading until the end' Karin Slaughter

"Brilliantly creepy ... wonderfully atmospheric and paranoid" - Guardian

"Timely, surprising, emotionally alive, this is about as good as suspense fiction gets" - Washington Post

"A twisty tale of suspense ... kept me guessing as I turned the pages at a furious clip" - New York Times

"A terrific, chilling premise, elevated by the plot's sophisticated architecture ... a first-rate thriller" - Sarah Pekkanen

"56 Days? I read it in 24 HOURS because it was so compulsive, intriguing and fantastically entertaining. I could not let it go." - Liz Nugent

"Absolutely faultless ... 56 Days is crime-writing perfection and Catherine Ryan Howard is a seriously talented writer" - C.L. Taylor

"An absolute belter from the high priestess of high concepts. Claustrophobic, thrilling and fiendishly clever in both its structure and its twists." - Sarah Hilary

"What a fantastic book. Loved it and highly recommend." - Jill Mansell

"Magnificent. A high-concept thriller executed with panache and heaps of emotion." - Caz Frear

"Catherine Ryan Howard takes on one of the most disturbing types of crime we know about and treats it with both intelligence and sensitivity." - Literary Review

"Written and plotted so well and left me guessing up to the end. Brilliant!" - Patricia Gibney

"The tension builds and builds. Don't think you've figured it all out - there's a shocking final twist." - New York Times, The Best Thrillers of 2021

"A tense, edgy and compulsive read - 56 Days is brilliantly plotted, darkly humorous and utterly unexpected. This is Lockdown, but not as you know it." - Sam Blake

"Don't want to read a lockdown novel? Neither did I. Then I read 56 Days and changed my mind. Absolutely brilliant!" - C S Green

"Mind-blowingly brilliant" - Irish Examiner

"Howard is brilliant at creating high-concept crime plots with killer twists ...The plot is riveting, the writing seamless and the characters very convincing ... the perfect - despite the pandemic setting - escapist novel" - Sunday Independent

"Ryan Howard's plotting is second to none. The novel also has the virtue of precise, vivid and efficiently delivered prose - Ryan Howard writes with an economy of style that brings to mind the work of Lee Child ... highly recommended" - Sunday Business Post

"Staggeringly accomplished ... its sustained emotional power raises it to the first rank" - Irish Times

"A very fine work of crime fiction ... deserves to be savored" - RTÉ

"Fantastic ... the structure is superb" - Emma Flint

"Ryan Howard's skilful plotting continually wrongfoots the reader as twist follows twist until the totally surprising and genuinely shocking truth is revealed ... a terrific read" - Irish Independent

"A timely, twisted thriller" - Image

"A bravura piece of storytelling ... immediate and timely" - The Quietus