An Ethical Guide To Murder: She can take years off your life. Don't annoy her. - Hardcover

Morris, Jenny

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1398534404 ISBN 13: 9781398534407

Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK, 2025

Synopsis

'[A] belting debut . . . This is high-concept, high-octane, hi-jinks and I'm here for it' Maz Evans
‘This original read is dark, funny and gripping’ heat, Book of the Week

How to Kill Your Family meets The Power in this entertaining and thought-provoking read, that asks:
 
If you had the power between life and death, what would you do?
 
Thea has a secret.
She can tell how long someone has left to live just by touching them.
Not only that, but she can transfer life from one person to another – something she finds out the hard way when her best friend Ruth suffers a fatal head injury on a night out.
Desperate to save her, Thea touches the arm of the man responsible when he comes to check if Ruth is all right. As Ruth comes to, the man quietly slumps to the ground, dead.

Thea realises that she has a godlike power: but despite deciding to use her ability for good, she can’t help but sometimes use it for her own benefit.
Boss annoying her at work? She can take some life from them and give it as a tip to her masseuse for a great job.
Creating an ‘Ethical Guide to Murder’ helps Thea to focus her new-found skills.
But as she embarks on her mission to punish the wicked and give the deserving more time, she finds that it isn’t as simple as she first thought.

How can she really know who deserves to die, and can she figure out her own rules before Ruth’s borrowed time runs out?

‘Jenny Morris’ remarkable debut novel resembles Naomi Alderman’s The Power, but she limits the ability to harm and sets the story in the present, not the future…(a) clever, beguiling novel’ The Times

‘Relatable, poignant, and filled with unexpected twists, An Ethical Guide to Murder is near-impossible to put down. I was hooked all the way up to the ending, which I can't stop thinking about. A must-read for 2025’ Jenny Hollander

‘An Ethical Guide to Murder is a fabulous book! Jenny Morris has taken the "with great power comes great responsibility" concept and applied it to someone who struggles to be responsible for her own laundry. Thea is a relatable, messy character whose trials and tribulations kept me laughing all the way to the emotional gut punch. What a marvellous debut!’ Alice Bell

‘An Ethical Guide to Murder is the best type of book – one that’s as entertaining as it is thought-provoking. With Thea, Jenny Morris has created one of the most interesting characters that I’ve read in a long time’ Kellye Garrett

About this title

About the Author

Jenny Morris lives in Crowborough, the home of Winnie the Pooh and an outrageous number of charity shops. She loves a moral dilemma, and writes high-concept crime novels that explore deep philosophical questions like 'How much would I have to pay you to eat a human toe?' She has a PhD in Cognitive Psychology and works as a behavioural scientist. When not reading or writing, she enjoys galloping around the Ashdown Forest on a horse, foraging for mushrooms and getting way too intense about board games at the pub.

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1398534404
• ISBN 13: 9781398534407
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 416