THE ATOMICS. This item is unavailable.THE ATOMICS

The debut psychological thriller from Paul Maunder

Longlisted for the Caledonia Novel Award

Midsummer, 1968. When Frank Banner and his wife Gail move to the rural Suffolk coast to work at a newly built nuclear power station, they are hoping to leave the violence and pain of their past behind them.

Gail wants a baby, but Frank is only concerned with spending time in the gleaming reactor core of the Seton One power station. Their new neighbours are also 'Atomics' part of the power station community. Frank takes an instant dislike to the boorish, predatory Maynard, and when the other man begins to pursue a young woman who works in the power station s medical centre, Frank decides to intervene - with terrifying consequences.

As the sun beats relentlessly upon the bleak, melancholic landscape, his demons return. A vicious and merciless voice tells him he has an obligation to protect the young woman and Frank knows just how to do it. As the weeks pass, we witness Frank's steady descent into obsession, violent desire and barbarity.

A brilliantly unsettling story of madness, revenge and Uranium-235, The Atomics is an unforgettable debut. A literary tour de force combining the chill of the modern gothic and the pulse of a thriller.

'The Atomics is a terrifically compulsive slice of post-war domestic noir: a vivid psychological thriller that unfolds into a strange and powerful study of male violence' Michael Hughes, author of The Countenance Divine and Country

Paul Maunder is an author and journalist. His 2018 memoir, The Wind at my Back, explores the connections between landscape, creativity and the writing process. He was awarded a Faber bursary for his fiction and has an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, where he studied with the Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion. He regularly publishes features and fiction in cycling magazines Peloton and Rouleur.