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The Sandpit cover art

The Sandpit

By: Nicholas Shakespeare
Narrated by: David Bark-Jones
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Publisher's Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

When John Dyer returns to Oxford from Brazil with his young son, he doesn't expect to find them both in danger. Every day is the same. He drops Leandro at his smart prep school and walks to the library to research his new book. His time living on the edge as a foreign correspondent in Rio is over. 

But the rainy streets of this English city turn out to be just as treacherous as those he used to walk in the favelas. 

Leandro’s schoolmates are the children of influential people, among them an international banker, a Russian oligarch, an American CIA operative and a British spook. As they congregate round the sports field for the weekly football matches, the network of alliances and covert interests that spreads between these power brokers soon becomes clear to Dyer. But it is a chance conversation with an Iranian nuclear scientist Rustum Marvar, father of a friend of Leandro, that sets him onto a truly precarious path. 

When Marvar and his son disappear, several sinister factions seem acutely interested in Marvar’s groundbreaking research at the Clarendon Lab and what he might have told Dyer about it, given Dyer was the last person to see Marvar alive. 

©2020 Nicholas Shakespeare (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Critic Reviews

"A remarkable contemporary thriller - with shades of Graham Greene and Le Carré about it - but also a profound and compelling investigation of a hugely complex human predicament. Brilliantly observed, captivatingly written, grippingly narrated - a triumph." (William Boyd)

What listeners say about The Sandpit

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Deft and immersive

So cleverly crafted, great plot which became increaingly unputdownable by half way through. This story provides depiction of a coterie of upper class Brits, international diplomats and globe trotting specialists who gather around a rarified Oxford private school. A slightly implausible premise lies at the heart of the novel but its such a great tale I was happy to siuspend my disbelief.

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Love Nicholas Shakespeare and his writing

What a great writer I enjoyed this book. Not hugely but very much. I also love the narrator David B-J

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Beautiful!!!

Thanks Nicholas! This is absolutely beautiful writing. And great storytelling. I’m heading over to your.prequel now, The Dancer Upstairs.

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Elegant and engaging

I loved everything about this book. Pace, characters and storyline elegantly woven into a gem.

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