You think it will never happen to you: the ring of the bell, the policeman on the doorstep. What he says traps you in a nightmare that starts with the words, 'I'm afraid…'
Sally Lambert is also afraid, and desperate enough to consider the unthinkable. Is it really, definitely, impossible to escape from this horror? Maybe not. There's always something you can do, right?
Of course, no one would ever do this particular something – except the Lamberts, who might have to.
No one has ever gone this far. Until Sally decides that the Lamberts will…
No One Would Do What The Lamberts Have Done by Sophie Hannah was published on 19 June 2025 by Bedford Square Publishing. As part of this #RandomThingsTours Blog Tour, I am delighted to share an extract from the book with you.
Extract from No One Would Do What The Lamberts Have Done by Sophie Hannah
Monday 16 September 2024
Connor
PC Connor Chantree was afraid he’d already ruined everything and was about to be sent abruptly on his way. He should have explained to Large first, and only then handed over the bundle of papers. He’d done his best to uncrush them, straighten them out, smooth away creases and brush off what dirt he could. Then he’d arranged them into a rectangular shape, which had taken far longer than he’d expected it to. He’d added two red elastic bands, top and bottom.
The result was unimpressive. It sat in the middle of Large’s desk and seemed to drink in the baffled stares of both men; and yes, Connor checked with himself, those battered pages did look thirsty in a way those not in the room would have called impossible.
Somehow, increasing the tidiness of the bundle’s presentation had achieved the opposite of what Connor had wanted. The document (was that the right name for a few hundred pages? Should he think of it as something else? A book?) looked nothing like the sort of pristine, sharp- cornered contender he’d hoped to create.
Contender? Words were appearing in Connor’s head that he was sure hadn’t been there before he’d read the… thing. Ideas too. Like this one: the spruced-up, rectangularised heap looked as if it was trying to mock convention – as if it had scuffed itself and kicked itself about a bit in an act of deliberate defiance. Even to Connor, its curator – curator? – it seemed to be saying, ‘And your point is?’, whereas the mess of maimed and defeated pages he’d seen on first opening the box had screamed a different message at him: ‘Pay attention! Help! Put me together!’
There was a strong chance, of course, that he was imagining some of this. He wished he’d brought in the soggy box, exactly as he’d received it and without reading any of the contents, and simply handed it over. ‘Above my pay grade,’ he could have said as he’d passed the problem on to Large.
Who was he kidding? He couldn’t have done that; the possibility hadn’t occurred to him because it had never existed. He’d felt duty-bound to drop everything and read the thing from start to finish before doing anything else. The physical package had been left for him, marked for his attention, and with it had come a powerful sense of duty that couldn’t be shirked.
Sophie Hannah is a Sunday Times, New York Times and Amazon Kindle UK No. 1
bestselling author and her books have sold millions of copies worldwide. She
writes contemporary psychological thrillers and, at the request of Agatha
Christie’s family and estate, the new series of Hercule Poirot novels.
She lives in
Cambridge with her family.
www.sophiehannah.com
X @sophiehannahCB1
Blue Sky @sophiehannah.bsky.social
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