Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Natural History
    Unavailable
    Natural History
    Unavailable
    Natural History
    Ebook284 pages4 hours

    Natural History

    By Neil Cross

    3.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    Listen to the audiobook instead

    About this ebook

    From the acclaimed writer of Luther and Hard Sun, Natural History is a work of exquisite tension

    Strange things are happening in Monkeyland, the ailing Devonshire sanctuary that Patrick and his zoologist wife, Jane, took on in a bid to save their marriage. Their oldest female primate, the wise and gentle Rue, is found murdered in a corner of the compound. And a big, panther-like cat, preys around the park. It evades capture, lurking in the shadows and in the back of Patrick's mind. Private, threatening, elusive.

    With Patrick's son, Charlie, having left Monkeyland in disgrace and his wife on a field trip in Zaire, Patrick is left alone with his black cat and his fears. Until one night something happens that is so shocking, so deplorable, that it rips apart everything Patrick had ever held to be true.

    They say that a parent's worse nightmare is to suffer the death of a child. But what if that's not true?

    Praise for Natural History:
     
    'The skill with which the author manipulates the narrative, revealing its developments only by degrees, is what gives this sharply observed and suspenseful novel its edge – so that when the shocking climax takes place, it is both entirely unexpected and frighteningly plausible' The Times
     
    'Powerfully intelligent... the frightening permeability of borders lies at the centre of this complex and troubling book... Compressed lyricism generates sudden shifts between transitory events and durable historical patterns, Cross's novel is serious and compelling in equal measure' Guardian
     
    'Taut domestic intrigue, sprung with mistrust and the menacing stealth of hunting... A subtle interplay of anxieties and tolerances that keep parental treacheries in glaring focus' Financial Times
     
    'I'm a big fan of this author and particularly of this menacing novel, which on the surface could be a family drama but turns into something very nasty indeed. It's clever, tense and chilling. Highly recommended' Sarah Broadhurst, The Bookseller
     
    'Dark and densely plotted...the plot reaches a violent climax, challenging notions of guilt and the limits of parental responsibility' Daily Mail
     
    'A masterpiece… seductively readable, no matter how much one dreads what may happen next… mercilessly realistic… This is a dangerous novel. Everyone in it has a lot to worry about' Daily Telegraph
     
     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster UK
    Release dateOct 15, 2008
    ISBN9781847394750
    Author

    Neil Cross

    Neil Cross is the creator and sole writer of the critically acclaimed BBC America crime series Luther, and the film Luther: The Fallen Sun, available on Netflix. In 2011, Cross was awarded the Edgar Award for Best Teleplay for episode one of Luther. He is the author of the thriller Burial and lives with his family in Wellington, New Zealand. Visit him online at Neil-Cross.com.

    Read more from Neil Cross

    Related to Natural History

    Related ebooks

    General Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Q&A

      May 13, 2021

      CJ Carey is a pseudonym for British journalist and author Jane Thynne. She has worked for the BBC, The Daily Telegraph and The Independent. Widowland is her tenth novel. She lives in London and was married to fellow author Philip Kerr until his death

      1 min read

    • Article

      Widowland

      May 19, 2021

      Widowland
      1 min read

    • Article

      It’s Not On Me

      Oct 6, 2023

      It’s Not On Me
      4 min read

    • Article

      Michael Robotham

      Jul 29, 2021

      Last year, Michael Robotham saw his 2017 novel The Secrets She Keeps turn into a six-part psychological thriller drama TV series for Network Ten, starring Downton Abbey’s Laura Carmichael. “It was fascinating, exciting and slightly surreal seeing m

      1 min read

    • Article

      Our Favorite Episodes

      Jan 6, 2022

      THE EPISODE In the series’ 2014 pilot, “Sassenach,” headstrong World War II nurse Claire Randall (Caitriona Balfe) mysteriously travels through time to 1743, where she meets Scottish Highlander Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan). CAITRIONA SAYS “Claire was d

      3 min read

    • Article

      My Hunt For Josef Mengele

      Aug 31, 2023

      My Hunt For Josef Mengele
      11 min read

    • Article

      Grandma’s Secret Recipe

      Aug 2, 2022

      Grandma’s Secret Recipe
      3 min read

    • Article

      Hope After The Horror

      May 6, 2022

      EVERY three months he needs to have a session with his psychiatrist. It’s been this way since 2005, when he tried to take his own life. But at his most recent session the evaluation was different – his doctor was so pleased with his progress she chan

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Roush Review

      Feb 15, 2024

      The Roush Review
      3 min read

    • Article

      Rewind

      Aug 2, 2022

      Rewind
      2 min read

    • Article

      5 Best Books On Iwo Jima

      Feb 20, 2020

      5 Best Books On Iwo Jima
      1 min read

    • Article

      'The Last of the Tsars' Is Authoritative, Definitive, and Tells a Compelling Story

      Sep 6, 2017

      Oxford historian Robert Service examines the overthrow of the Russian Tsar Nicholas II in February 1917.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Battle Of Crete

      Sep 9, 2021

      Battle Of Crete
      9 min read

    • Article

      Who exactly was Walt Disney?

      Nov 23, 2023

      Answered by John Wills, professor of American media and culture at the University of Kent Walt Disney (1901-66) remains a captivating, yet elusive, cultural figure. Indeed, the long-standing urban myth that his body (or perhaps only his head) was cry

      1 min read

    • Article

      The House Exploded

      Jun 17, 2021

      The House Exploded
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Straight Story

      Mar 3, 2020

      The Straight Story
      14 min read

    • Article

      How Climate Change Could Cause A Home Insurance Meltdown

      Jul 22, 2023

      It's increasingly expensive and difficult to get home insurance, as losses rise from climate-driven disasters such as wildfires and hurricanes. And the solutions aren't always politically popular.

      11 min read

    • Article

      Stuff Awards 2022

      Dec 22, 2022

      Stuff Awards 2022
      8 min read

    • Article

      Kidnapped!

      Mar 8, 2023

      Kidnapped!
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Natural History

    3.5/5

    16 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed this book. Set in Devon during the late 1990s so Halle Bopp the comet makes an appearance. I felt for the Jones family and really liked them mostly Patrick the father. Unusual story buying the monkey sanctuary Jane, Patricks wife going off to Africa. You keep waiting for something to happen and you feel it coming but when it does its shocking. (I dont want to spoil the story but this is a great book)
    • 3/5
      Natural History is a peculiar book, one which seems better on reflection than whilst reading it. The characters, drawn from a family unit and their associates, are believably understated though mostly dysfunctional. The circumstances of running a small primate zoo provide the food for thought and various comparisons between the behaviour, often seemingly extreme and incomprehensible, of the animals and their human carers.The focus of the book is Patrick, devoted to a wife who finds celebrity which provides her with escape from the confines of the zoo and the family and becomes a long term and distant absentee as things fall apart at home. The cameo role of Patrick's Beast of Bodmin style big cat sighting generates tension and foreboding for a while and it was as I was really beginning to lose interest in the mundane lives of the characters that I expected, hoped even, that the involvement of the beast would come to the fore; it does but not as one might expect. When it arrives the sudden, explosive climax is cleverly crafted with more than one twist and a revelation which solves an earlier mystery. The aftermath to the violence affords reflection and comparison of the the nature of the animals and their human counterparts, their instinctive behaviour in captivity or relative freedom, their bonds and loyalties, cruelty and kindness, the species separated only in their evolved state of intellect, capability and ingenuity. Luck plays a part in allowing the family to move on, the ill fated zoo closes down and in breaking free from the shackles of the zoo and his offspring Patrick finds comfort in surprising and heartwarming manner. So, that should be that, only we might remember that there's a killer still on the loose.
    • 4/5
      Jane and Patrick take on Monkeyland, a failing animal sanctuary on the Devon coast. But Jane never stops looking for the next cause and soon she's off in Zaire, leaving Patrick to take care of the kids while wondering who would purposefully poison Rue, the most gentle and loving gorilla in the sanctuary.The ominousness in this book sort of crept up on me. I enjoyed reading it and didn't notice it was almost over until all hell broke lose. Despite that these "animal lovers" also apparently love to kick dogs in the butt, bash rats brains in and watch monkeys kill ducklings (I don't get it,) they are mostly realistic characters, occasionally endearing, and I wanted to see the family do well. I never suspected how well the author would make everything fall spectacularly apart.It isn't a crime novel or a horror novel so much as a story about a family with all its normal and abnormal bits, and a story about the differences between human beings and our monkey counterparts (or lack of difference.) It's a quiet novel with a pretty big impact.