Two bored, obsessed teenagers break into and secretly live in influencers’ houses. But when they choose the wrong home, their twisted experiment turns deadly. A darkly funny, breathtakingly tense thriller from ‘the most original writer in Britain’ (Daily Express)…
‘Will Carver uses his unique voice to skewer the vacuous world of wannabe influencers and reality TV … a savage, scathing, compelling but deeply funny take-down of a fake, narcissistic world. Totally on point and enormous fun!’ Trevor Wood
‘A smart, stylish writer’ Daily Mail
‘Will Carver follows Kill Them With Kindness with another satirical look at the world we live in and he does it brilliantly … captures the zeitgeist of 21st-century culture and I cannot wait to see where he goes next’ Michael Wood
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Alyssa wants to be seen. Less wants to be someone. She takes two buses to class, posts pictures of her lunch, and pretends it’s all effortless. He hides his privilege beneath thrifted clothes and a sketchbook full of impossible designs. Together, they are inseparable, two outsiders constructing a version of themselves the world might finally applaud.
Then Alyssa stumbles upon the hidden world of phrogging – living unnoticed inside other people’s homes. She and Less slip through Los Angeles’ glossy veneer: influencers, producers, pop stars, all so busy performing their perfect lives they don’t notice the shadows in their attics, the scratching in their walls.
An act of rebellion. A harmless thrill. A social experiment.
Until they choose the wrong house.
Until the influencer they idolise catches them in the act.
Until the cameras, already rolling, capture everything.
What begins as a reckless adventure becomes a nightmare of lies, power and the cost of visibility. Bad Influence is a breathtakingly tense, darkly funny thriller about the lives we curate, the secrets we hide, and the monsters made by the need to be seen.
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Praise for Will Carver
‘One of the most exciting authors in Britain’ Daily Express
‘Incredibly dark and very funny’ Harriet Tyce
‘Unlike anything you’ll read this year’ Heat
‘Impossibly original, stylish, sinister and heartfelt’ Chris Whitaker
‘Weirdly page-turning’ Sunday Times
‘Ambitious, dark and funny’ Mike Gayle
‘A highly original state-of-the-nation novel’ Literary Review
‘Arguably the most original crime novel published this year’ Independent
‘Mesmeric’ Guardian
‘Memorable for its unrepentant darkness…’ Telegraph
‘Perceptive and twisted in equal measure’ CultureFly
‘Unflinching, blunt and brutal’ Sam Holland
‘Equally enthralling and appalling’ James Oswald
‘One of the most compelling and original voices in crime fiction’ Alex North
‘Brilliantly original’ Sam Holland
‘Clever, compelling, funny’ Daily Mail
‘Superbly paced and remarkably inventive, a book that demands to be read in a single sitting’ M.W. Craven
‘Delightfully dark and wickedly inventive’ S.J. Watson
‘Multi-layered and masterfully written’ Heat magazine Book of the Month