Sam Jones – sculptor and involuntary sleuth – and her boyfriend Hugo, are spending New Year’s Eve in the quiet village of Lesser Swinfold with Sam’s best friend, Tom, who has taken a teaching job in the village in the hope of meeting plenty of available and sex-hungry single mothers.

Unfortunately, the single mother he has fallen in love with is less interested in him than she would be in a frontal lobotomy. And things aren’t going much better for Hugo and Sam: he loathes the countryside and she is flirting with a twenty-two-year-old with the face of a fallen angel.

So it is a more than unwelcome complication when a dead body is discovered, stabbed forty times with a Swiss army knife, and Tom becomes the principal suspect. With the appalling state of her love life uppermost in her mind, Sam is not in the best shape for tracking down the culprit before Tom is hauled off to jail by the local police. And will Hugo ever talk to her again?

Outrageous and hilarious, Pretty Boy confirms that Sam Jones is the perfect 21st century heroine and Lauren Henderson the queen of Tart Noir.

“Radiates with energy and wit.” – Evening Standard

“The story sizzles right from page one ….” – Company

“Freshness, wit, sharp observation and a plot that surprises.” – Independent