The Mercy Chair

Winner of the Fingerprint Award 2025 for Crime book

Shortlisted for Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel 2025

'Macabre and wry' Telegraph

'Mesmerising, macabre and magnificent. The Mercy Chair is truly terrifying, laugh-out-loud funny, and impossibly clever. Poe and Tilly are unstoppable' Chris Whitaker

'Washington Poe is a brilliant creation, from one of the finest and most inventive crime writers of today' Peter James

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin . . .

Washington Poe has a story to tell.

And he needs you to listen.

You'll hear how it started with the robber birds. Crows. Dozens of them. Enough for a murder . . .

He'll tell you about a man who was tied to a tree and stoned to death, a man who had tattooed himself with a code so obscure, even the gifted analyst Tilly Bradshaw struggled to break it. He'll tell you how the man's murder was connected to a tragedy that happened fifteen years earlier when a young girl massacred her entire family.

And finally, he'll tell you about the mercy chair. And why people would rather kill themselves than talk about it . . .

Poe hopes you've been paying attention. Because in this story, nothing is as it seems . . .

MORE PRAISE FOR MW CRAVEN:

'Craven renders the darkness of the human condition with immense skill, ratcheting the tension to a nails-on-chalkboard pitch. Don't turn out the lights.' Vaseem Khan

'The kind of novel that inspired me to write fiction in the first place. A guaranteed great time.' Chris Brookmyre

'Darkly entertaining' The Telegraph

'If you haven't read any M.W. Craven yet, fix that immediately' S. A. Cosby

'I've been following M.W. Craven's Poe/Tilly series from the very beginning, and it just gets better and better' Peter Robinson

'Poe and Tilly books are a joy' Steve Cavanagh

'In Tilly and Poe, M.W. Craven has created a stand-out duo who are two of the most compelling characters in crime fiction in recent years' Fiona Cummins

'Darkly comic . . . Thrilling' The Independent

'Clever, sophisticated, utterly gripping thriller from one of the best writers around' Mari Hannah

'Craven has unleashed Ben Koenig into the thriller world. Long may he raise hell in the pages. A superb thriller that will have everyone talking, and gasping.' David Baldacci

'Paging Lee and Andrew Child: you've got company' The Times