Tommo has just moved to a prestigious boarding school. A product of the middle class, and with new-found independence thrust upon him, he finds himself invited into fading crumbling country houses.

It’s the early nineties and the elite he is now surrounded by is struggling for relevance. Alienated from the mainstream, and running low on inherited wealth, his peers have retreated into snobbery and fatalism. Initially awed by their poise and seduced by their hedonism, Tommo gradually becomes aware of sinister undercurrents and a suppressed rage that threatens to explode into violence.

In this world, half-remembered traditions mix with decadence and an awful lot of small dead animals. And sometimes, not just animals. When Tommo’s friend Johnnie’s brother is found dead, a shotgun at his feet, he realises there are secrets that everyone knows, but no one speaks about, or even acknowledges. And those secrets can no longer be hidden.

'Keeps the outrageous laughs and twists coming in equal measure' – Alexander Larman, The Observer

"

'Sometimes sad, often funny coming-of-age story... a fine novel. It is moving, as novels of time lost and time recovered always are'

"

'There is a lovely turn of phrase on every page...Combining Adrian Mole, Withnail and Iain Banks by way of Kingsley Amis, engaging, buffered by a nice line in self-deprecation'

"

'a coming-of-age story with a mind-blowing opening paragraph, the novel explores middle-class teenager Tommo's moves among the fading elite of society and the sinister undertow of their world, holding the reader in a vice-like grip all the way to the final page'

"

'Hot on the heels of Saltburn and Jonny Sweet’s The Kellerby Code, Hugo Rifkind’s entertaining new novel offers another jaded look at the antics of the posh . . . keeps the outrageous laughs and twists coming in equal measure'

"

'It is terrific... really captures the anxiety of youth'

"

'A menacingly funny story of dark secrets, coming-of-age faltering, and the dirty seduction of being sucked into elite circles... Rabbits is a droll, bold, disturbing dynamo of a book'

"

'The novel captures the awkwardness of boyhood, of fierce friendship, the danger of neglect...Shotguns, drugs, kilts, testosterone and a lonely-boy hero caught up in a murder mystery is a dangerous combination. Rifkind nails the blood-chilling brutality of the upper classes'

"

'A poignant story of doomed love... a "proper debut", a coming of age story drawing heavily on his own background and experience'

"

'A dark and deeply unsettling tale of aristocratic excess, fatalism, snobbery and unfeasibly large, crumbling mansions set in remote Scottish glens. Rifkind is a famously entertaining writer and in Rabbits he takes the handbrake off'

"

'Told in a breezy, irreverent style that plumbs black comedy to reveal its tragedy, Rabbits feels like a blend of Brideshead Revisited and Less Than Zero reworked by Chris Brookmyre'

"

'Rifkind shows us that he is a natural born storyteller with this dark hearted and richly imagined tale. The novelists vivid descriptions and addictive writing style make for a fast paced and compelling read'

"

'Rifkind's gripping thriller, a coming-of-age story that reads like a less graphic Saltburn, with kilts and ceilidhs instead of Sophie Ellis-Bextor'

"

'Darkly funny, tragic and instantly compelling, Rabbits is a coming-of-age story that encapsulates the slightly feral condition of teenage boys in rural Scotland tasting independence for the first time'