The Impossible Thing

Published 26/02/2026 | Paperback / softback,
Description:

From the Sunday Times bestselling and Booker-longlisted author of Snap, and winner of the CWA Crime Novel of the Year, comes ‘An exciting contemporary whodunnit’ (Times Literary Supplement)*****’A unique crime novel that is both moving and funny . . . highly recommend’***** 5-STAR reader reviewA summer’s evening in 1926, and six-year-old Celie Shepherd is hungry, desperate and dangling from a cliff, as she stretches out to steal something impossible. The bold theft will change Celie’s life, and the lives of many others.

One hundred years later, a remote home is ransacked by masked men. The only thing taken: a dusty box containing that same impossible thing. What could be so unique – and so valuable – that it is stolen again and again . . . and again?So begins this extraordinary mystery from award-winning Belinda Bauer. The Impossible Thing brims with skulduggery at every turn, and is a blazing testament to Belinda Bauer’s status as one of our greatest living crime writers.

‘The most suspenseful whodunnit you’ll read this year’LEE CHILD‘A funny, moving and beautifully written tale’ Guardian’Joyous . . . The most gripping yarn’ Daily Telegraph ‘A brilliant rollercoaster of a crime novel’ ROB COWENReaders are OBSESSED with The Impossible Thing!‘Enthralling, hilarious, mysterious… I thoroughly enjoyed this book’ 5-STAR reader review‘A perfect crime caper’ Woman & Home‘Pure joy’ VAL MCDERMID‘Packs a real punch’ ANN CLEEVES‘Astonishing’ New York Times’Comic, thrilling and ultimately moving’ The Scottish Mail on Sunday‘I loved every page of this unique mystery.’ CLARE MACKINTOSH, bestselling author of I Let You GO‘One of the most enjoyable novels I’ve read in ages’ PAULA HAWKINS, bestselling author of The Girl on the Train