120,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock 🇳🇿

Enjoy overnight delivery from our 100% NZ-owned independent bookstore 🚀

Fair Play

By Louise Hegarty
0.0 (0 reviews)
2.76 goodreads logo

Ratings/reviews counts are updated frequently.

Check link for latest rating. ( 8,007 ratings, 1,572 reviews)
Brief Description
A LOCKED ROOM.A HIDDEN LIFE. Abigail and her brother Benjamin have always been close. To celebrate his birthday, Abigail hires a grand old house and gathers their friends together for a murder mystery party. As the night goes on, they drink too much and play games.... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$3799
AVAILABLE WITH SUPPLIER Ships from our Auckland warehouse within 4-6 weeks

Found a better price? Request a price match

Fair Play is the puzzle-box story of two competing tales that brilliantly lay bare the real truth of life - the terrifying mystery of grief.

This is a murder mystery. This is a story about love. Or is it? . . .

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

A LOCKED ROOM.
A HIDDEN LIFE.

Abigail and her brother Benjamin have always been close. To celebrate his birthday, Abigail hires a grand old house and gathers their friends together for a murder mystery party. As the night goes on, they drink too much and play games. Relationships are forged, consolidated or frayed. Someone kisses someone they shouldn't, someone else's heart is broken.

In the morning, everyone wakes up - except Benjamin.

Suddenly everything is not quite what it seems. An eminent detective arrives determined to find Benjamin's killer. The house now has a butler, a gardener and a housekeeper. This is a locked-room mystery, and everyone is a suspect.

As Abigail attempts to fathom her brother's unexpected death in a world that has been turned upside down, she begins to wonder whether perhaps the true mystery might have been his life...

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781035036141

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 03 April 2025

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Picador

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 23.0mm

Width: 153.0mm

Height: 235.0mm

Weight: 358g

Pages: 288

Collections

Classic Crime & Mystery Fiction Classic Fiction Crime & Thriller Fiction General Fiction Literary Fiction Louise Hegarty

About the Author

Louise Hegarty's stories have appeared in Banshee, The Tangerine, The Stinging Fly and The Dublin Review and have been featured on BBC Radio 4. She was the inaugural winner of the Sunday Business Post/Penguin Ireland Short Story Prize and recently her story 'Now, Voyager' was produced as part of A City and A Garden, a new state-of-the-art sonic experience commissioned by Sounds from a Safe Harbour in association with Body & Soul and presented as part of Brightening Air | Coiscéim Coiligh. Fair Play is her debut novel.

Also by Louise Hegarty

View all
  • Fair Play
    Fair Play
    A Book of the Year in The Times, The Guardian, and Elle 'A treat' - Paul Murray, author of The Bee Sting 'Dazzling' - Colin Walsh, author of Kala 'Brilliant' - The Times 'Ingenious' - The Telegraph 'Terrific' - The New York Times 'Heartbreaking' - The Guardian THE HEART IS A LOCKED ROOM Abigail's brother Benjamin is dead, and her...
    By Louise Hegarty
    Paperback
    $2800
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Getting the Electric
    Getting the Electric
    PHENOMENALLY TALENTED - The Sunday Times Are you ready to play? Have you ever found yourself doom-scrolling, worrying about that weird pain in your leg, only to have your plans for the day completely trashed by the appearance of a literal axe-wielding troll? What about that time you came across a perfect double of yourself in the street? Or the...
    By Louise Hegarty
    Paperback
    Sold Out

More from Crime & Thriller

View all
  • New Release
    Death Row
    With all hope of an appeal fading away, the fate of a condemned murderess takes a shocking turn in a breathtaking short story from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Housemaid! A thrilling novella from #1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden! Death is coming for her… unless she finds the truth first. Talia Kemper is on death row for murdering...
    By Freida McFadden
    Paperback
    $2299
    Elsewhere:
    $2400
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Dying Days
    Award-winning writer delivers a pulse-pounding espionage thriller. Missing soldiers, MI6 secrets and European partisans collide in a deadly game where the lines between lies and reality are fast disintegrating. In the dying days of the Second World War, a new conflict is about to ignite. May, 1945: After fighting to liberate Europe from the Nazis, Tito's Yugoslav Army and Allied...
    By Anthony Byrt
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3699
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Fury In Death: An Eve Dallas thriller (In Death 63)
    In the new crime thriller from the bestselling author, Lt. Eve Dallas journeys into the darkness where murder is born… NYSPD homicide detective Eve Dallas has seen a lot in her time but even she is shocked by the savagery of a beating which leaves a wealthy biotech executive dead in his home office. The victim’s corpse is so mangled...
    By J. D. Robb
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Tom Clancy Pressure Depth
    Jack Ryan Jr leads a team of divers in a race to beat the Chinese Navy to a weapon of terrible destructive power in the latest entry in the #1 New York Times bestselling series. Jack Ryan Jr. is on Guam to work on a project for Hendley Associates. It's a perfectly ordinary insurance matter, but trouble finds the Ryans...
    By Jack Stewart
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Country Road Murders
    New Release
    The Country Road Murders
    From the Sunday Times bestselling author comes a pulse-pounding thriller about justice, vengeance and the roads that lead us home. No one gets this big without amazing natural storytelling talent - which is what Jim has, in spades — LEE CHILD Cross Rivers is the kind of small town where everyone knows your name – and your secrets. Silas Tucker...
    By James Patterson
    Paperback
    $3000
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Every Lake
    Scary stories are fun... until your life becomes one. When Alice was fifteen, her father killed Mia Heywood in their lakefront cottage before vanishing into the trees. At least that's what the locals think happened. Over a decade later, Alice has lost her job as a journalist, she's going through an expensive divorce and she desperately needs to sell the...
    By Adam Perry
    Paperback
    $3299
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    (2)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Nautilus
    New Release
    Nautilus
    The follow-up to the bestselling novel The Turing Protocol. Nautilus is a machine with the astonishing power to send messages eight weeks back in time. Its users must follow a set of protocols established by its inventor, Alan Turing, including that it can only be used by a descendant of his family, and only to avert global disasters. But what...
    By Nick Croydon
    Paperback
    $2999
    Elsewhere:
    $3699
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Cold River
    New Release
    Cold River
    The sensational new novel from the author of the bestselling thriller, The Creeper, winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Fiction 2025. Deep in the mountains, secrets grow deadly... Detective Constable Sally White knows how easily hikers can go missing in Victoria's high country. But there's something about the disappearance of Louis Taylor, a young man lost up...
    By Margaret Hickey
    Paperback
    $3000
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    It Could Have Been Her
    PREPARE TO BE HOOKED: The no. 1 Sunday Times and MULTI-million-copy bestselling author is back with a brand-new spine tingling thriller. It was the night she almost died. Jane Trevally, newly divorced and feeling a little lost, agrees to accompany a man she doesn't know to his house in the darkest corner of Hampstead Heath. She's offered a drink, goes in, and...
    By Lisa Jewell
    Paperback
    $3000
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • 26 Beauties
    The twenty-sixth thrilling novel in the globally bestselling Women's Murder Club series. Beautiful young women are disappearing by the dozen. A celebration is cut short when a concerned father crashes Detective Inspector Lindsay Boxer's party. His daughter is missing - and she's not the only one. DI Lindsay Boxer has been tracking a chilling pattern: a Jane Doe washed ashore,...
    By James Patterson
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Lizzy's Pick Lizzy's Pick
    The Secrets We Hide
    The stunning new North Falls thriller by the bestselling author of We Are All Guilty Here 'Quite simply, Karin Slaughter is the best of us' Dervla McTiernan Welcome back to North Falls -- a small town with big secrets. The house at 1601 Iris Drive looks like any other in the quiet, residential street. But rumours are rife about the Vickery...
    By Karin Slaughter
    Paperback
    $3099
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    (2)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    The Parkwood Murders
    They came for an escape, but can they escape a killer? Detective Nicola Bridge returns in another gripping and immersive mystery For its loyal guests, Parkwood Holiday Village in west Dorset is a haven- woodland walks, a tranquil lake, service around the clock. Until, just after midsummer, a body is found floating in the swimming pool. Detective Nicola Bridge, exhausted...
    By Chris Chibnall
    Paperback
    $3000
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    In Stock
    Ships today

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.

Crime & Thriller lists from the team

Explore our curated lists from our heroes to find your next read!

The Latest at Book Hero

View all