Nutshell

So here I am, upside down in a woman. Arms patiently crossed, waiting, waiting and wondering who I’m in, what I’m in for. To be or not to be? That is the question Particularly if your life has yet to really begin. Trudy has betrayed her husband, John. She's still in the marital home – a dilapidated, priceless London townhouse – but John's not here. Instead, she's with his brother, the profoundly banal Claude, and the two of them have a plan and that plan involves murder. But there is a witness to their plot: the inquisitive, nine-month–old resident of Trudy's womb a Hamlet in miniature who hears and plays a very unusual kind of detective. Told from a perspective unlike any other, *Nutshell* is a classic tale of murder and deceit from one of the world’s master storytellers. ‘*Nutshell* is an orb, a Venetian glass paperweight, of a book… it is a consciously late, deliberately elegiac, masterpiece, a calling together of everything McEwan has learned and knows about his art.’ – *The Guardian* A writer who has no doubt changed the landscape of British fiction, Ian McEwan’s diverse, experimental literary portfolio encompasses Gothic short stories, dark psychological dramas such as *[The Cement Garden](https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-cement-garden/ian-mcewan/9780099755111)* and *[Enduring Love](https://www.waterstones.com/book/enduring-love/ian-mcewan/9780099276586)* as well as a spy thriller *[Sweet Tooth](https://www.waterstones.com/book/sweet-tooth/ian-mcewan/9780099578789), an epic of wartime [Atonement](https://www.waterstones.com/book/atonement/ian-mcewan/9780099429791)* and state-of-the-nation *novels [Amsterdam](https://www.waterstones.com/book/amsterdam/ian-mcewan/9780099272779)* (for which he won the Booker Prize), *[Saturday](https://www.waterstones.com/book/saturday/ian-mcewan/9780099469681)*, *[Solar](https://www.waterstones.com/book/solar/ian-mcewan/9780099549024)* and [*The Children Act*](https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-children-act/ian-mcewan/9780099599630).