Grisly. A faith healing cult on an isolated island divided by a fence and inhabited by wild pigs, the preacher gone mad and isolated away from his flock with his disabled daughter on one side, the rest of the faithful on the other. A story starts circulating on the mainland that a half human-half animal creature has been seen wandering the island.

Everyone hates him. Me – I think I can see the sun shine when he bends over.

Journalist Joe Oakes is invited by the Psychogneic Healing Ministries to visit the island in order to debunk the myth that a devil is running around. The cult members don’t realise that Joe has history with the mad minister. Years previously he wrote an article under a pseudonym calling the minister a sham healer. 

What unfolds is a gruesome, page turning thriller with a twist that will make your skin crawl. If you can’t stomach a bit of graphic violence it may not be for you. It may also give you nightmares.

Pig Island is the fourth novel by Mo Hayder, the pen name for Beatrice Bastin who died recently from complications of Motor Neurone Disease. Pig Island was nominated for a Barry Award for Best British crime novel and a CWA dagger.

Hayder wrote ten thrillers, earning herself the title of ‘queen of fear’. There is also another due out in 2022 written under the name Theo Clare:

Jack Caffery series

• Birdman (2000)
• The Treatment (2001)
• Ritual (2008)
• Skin (2009)
• Gone (2010)
• Poppet (2013)
• Wolf (2014)

Stand-alone novels

• Tokyo (2004), also published as The Devil of Nanking (2010)
• Pig Island (2006)
• Hanging Hill (2011)

Writing as Theo Clare

• The Book of Sand (2022)