When Ray Arthur, a retired detective, is killed mysteriously in a road accident, his daughter Zoe is shattered. Her need to understand his life, and the circumstances of his death, sends her home to the town in which she grew up. She tracks down Declan, a former police artist and a one-time friend of her father's. Through their fraught encounters, a terrible picture of guilt and betrayal emerges. With forensic skill, Phil Whitaker peels back the layers of distortion and family myth to expose the truth about Ray Arthur's friendship with Declan and their secret collaboration over a dreadful crime in the distant past. Deft and gripping, The Face is a novel about guilt and innocence, flesh and blood, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing another person.

Author Biography

PHIL WHITAKER ('an intelligent, sympathetic and eloquent writer' Sunday Telegraph) is the author of two previous novels. Eclipse of the Sun won the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, a Betty Trask Award, and was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award. Triangulation was joint winner of the Encore Award for best second novel. He lives in Oxford with his wife and children, and divides his time between writing and his work as a forensic medical examiner and GP.