From the Sunday Times bestselling and Booker-longlisted author of Snap, and winner of the CWA Crime Novel of the Year, comes 'An exciting contemporary whodunnit' (Times Literary Supplement)

*****'A unique crime novel that is both moving and funny . . . highly recommend'***** 5-STAR reader review
*****Longlisted for the Theakston Crime Novel of the Year*****

A summer's evening in 1926, and six-year-old Celie Shepherd is hungry, desperate and dangling from a cliff, as she stretches out to steal something impossible. The bold theft will change Celie's life, and the lives of many others.

One hundred years later, a remote home is ransacked by masked men. The only thing taken: a dusty box containing that same impossible thing. What could be so unique - and so valuable - that it is stolen again and again . . . and again?

So begins this extraordinary mystery from award-winning Belinda Bauer. The Impossible Thing brims with skulduggery at every turn, and is a blazing testament to Belinda Bauer's status as one of our greatest living crime writers.

'The most suspenseful whodunnit you'll read this year'
LEE CHILD

'A funny, moving and beautifully written tale' Guardian

'Joyous . . . The most gripping yarn' Daily Telegraph

'A brilliant rollercoaster of a crime novel' ROB COWEN

Readers are OBSESSED with The Impossible Thing!
'Enthralling, hilarious, mysterious... I thoroughly enjoyed this book' 5-STAR reader review
'A perfect crime caper' Woman & Home
'Pure joy' VAL MCDERMID
'Packs a real punch' ANN CLEEVES
'Astonishing' New York Times
'Comic, thrilling and ultimately moving' The Scottish Mail on Sunday
'I loved every page of this unique mystery.' CLARE MACKINTOSH, bestselling author of I Let You GO
'One of the most enjoyable novels I've read in ages' PAULA HAWKINS, bestselling author of The Girl on the Train