Spin Cycle

Zoe Strachan

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Agnes, Siobhan and Myrna all work in their local launderette. Agnes, betrayed by her husband, is fascinated by tales of true crime - particularly the murder of her glamorous cousin Vina, killed years ago. Myrna, meanwhile, dreams of romance but craves sex and money; with mounting debts, she enters a shadowy world fraught with danger. Siobhan, the most reclusive of the three, spends her time conjuring the details of people's lives through their laundry - her fantasies becoming gradually more and more treacherous. Blacker and more ambitious than Negative Space, Zoë Strachan's vibrant second novel is illuminated by her light observational touch, deft characterization and gift for creating - and sustaining - suspense.

Reviews

"A gripping novel, full of twisted psychology and dark, covert obsessions; both murky and dazzling" Uncut
"Pitch-perfect: intelligent construction, unrelenting tension and a redemptive flourish of an ending" The Big Issue
"One of the most gorgeously written books I've read in a long time. Strachan illuminates the failings and dreams of her cast in graceful, probing brush strokes. Each page is wondrous and urgent and leaves you gasping for more. Strachan rocks." Helen Walsh, author of Brass
"Bringing the launderette sub-genre bang up to date, Strachan‚s three damaged female protagonists are complex, secretive and isolated. A rich, poignant work." The List
"Strachan breathes life into her characters and settings, and there's a warmth to her prose which suffuses reading about them with a sense of intimacy" Glasgow Herald
"Spin Cycle has the noir sexiness of Dance With a Stranger: idiosyncratic individuals, gnarled by bitterness and covetous desire, moments of small embarrassment and mundane realism, the eventual breathless climax" Uncut
"The tension never dips, dialogue is perfect. A must read" Daily Record
"Strachan follows her prize-winning first novel Negative Space with another well-observed and quietly forceful story about women in emotional turmoil . . . She makes us notice the everyday detail of their working lives, the minor tensions and the camaraderie, the idle chat and occasional pearls of wisdom, and introduces us to a parade of those strange people without washing machines who all get cameo parts while they‚re waiting for the spin cycle to finish" Independent on Sunday