The New York Times’ #1 Thriller of 2024: ‘A deliciously nasty tale of resentment and revenge’

The New York Times' #1 Thriller of 2024

'Highsmithian… highly readable, twisty and shrewd' HANYA YANAGIHARA (on Instagram), author of A Little Life

'Atmospheric, diabolical fun' LUCY FOLEY, author of The Midnight Feast

'Disturbingly enjoyable' EMMA HEALEY, author of Elizabeth is Missing

'A taut, wicked masterpiece' MONA AWAD, author of Bunny

Five years ago, 81-year-old Maggie Burkhardt fled her native Wisconsin in suspicious circumstances. She has come to rest somewhere she can imagine staying forever: the Royal Karnak Hotel in Luxor, Egypt.

Maggie is no sweet little old lady. She has a nasty, nosy habit: she spies on her fellow guests and manipulates situations to 'liberate' them from what she sees as unhappy relationships.

Wrongly assuming eight-year-old Otto and his well-meaning mother will be easy targets, she is soon locked in a death-spiral with her young prey. Has she finally met her match in a child one-tenth her age?

Crackling with the perceptive, acid wit of The White Lotus and haloed by Shirley Jackson’s cruel, dark magic, HAVOC is a decadent and ghastly delight.

Readers are saying…

'Absolutely brilliant and insane. I went in knowing very little about the book and I’m glad because it made it even more of a wild ride' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'I loved this book from the first page… The conflict between the old and the young in this cat and mouse tussle is brilliant. It’s a hard to put down novel and has a great twist at the end' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'I had an absolute blast reading this. Otto and Maggie are wild characters and their behavior is shocking!' ⭐⭐⭐⭐

"

A lot of books claim to be Highsmithian, but this one actually is: A highly readable, twisty, and shrewd satire presenting as a thriller about entitlement, loneliness, jealousy, and the eternal friction between the young and old. Utterly enjoyable

" - Instagram

"

Bollen combines two Agatha Christie settings, a hotel and the Middle East, installs a monstrous caricature of Miss Marple and adds touches from horror such as hints of still-active Egyptian gods. However, Havoc’s finest feature is Bollen’s crafting of Maggie’s first-person voice, which tracks her mental disintegration

" - Sunday Times, Best Thrillers of 2025

"

Beautiful writing and expertly torqued tension add up to a delightfully nasty page-turner

" - Guardian

"

Irresistible

" - i Paper

"

This is lot of fun – a deliriously unhinged novel… a cleverly insidious off-kilter thriller

" - Daily Mail

"

A deliciously nasty tale of resentment and revenge … Listening to her describe her strange habits and her wacky opinions of other people is great, wicked fun … Bollen writes with wit and style about an increasingly unhinged battle of wills between two unlikely, and formidable, opponents

" - New York Times

"

Bollen’s gloriously waspish thriller is an out-and-out romp … Bollen leans into said monstrousness with glee and things quickly escalate to hilarious and horrific effect. Brilliantly fun

" - Marie Claire

"

Brilliantly written… both gripping and hilarious… I have not enjoyed the prose of any book as much in a very long time

" - Spectator

"

Unusual but wholly original … Deliciously dark and propulsive

" - The Sunday Post

"

The author excels at ratcheting up Maggie’s unreliability

" - TLS

"

This destination thriller is perfect for White Lotus fans

" - People, Best New Books

"

Bollen anticipated the White Lotus craze with a series of thrillers in fantasy travel destinations… Bollen gleefully lays on the melodrama and teases out the unmasking of his very unreliable narrator, escalating to a cymbal-crashing finale of revelations and violence

" - Boston Globe

"

Lyrically written, with sharp, candid wit, this is a fresh, strange pleasure of a book

" - Platinum, Book of the Month

"

Christopher Bollen has been a growing figure in the literary suspense world for a while, but this book should cement his place as one of the very best

" - Literary Hub

"

Bollen writes a cat-and-mouse psychological thriller set in a sprawling hotel located on the banks of the Nile. The cat might be 81-year-old widow Maggie Burkhardt, a meddlesome fixer. The mouse might be eight-year-old Otto, son of the mournful Tessa. Or it might be the other way around.

" - Library Journal

"

An octogenarian Wisconsin widow faces off against an eight-year-old troublemaker in this first-rate tale of psychological suspense…. each of whom is refreshingly drawn against type….the mayhem mounts and the plot careens toward a genuinely shocking climax….Enriching the narrative with an evocative sense of atmosphere and playful riffs on The Bad Seed and Agatha Christie, Bollen serves up a nasty treat. It’s a bracing ode to bad behavior.

" - Publishers Weekly