About The Book

From the internationally bestselling, award-winning crime writer Minette Walters, The Cellar is a harrowing, compulsively readable novel about a family of African immigrants, the Songolis, and the dark secret they keep hidden in the depths of their seemingly respectable house in the London suburbs.

On the day Mr. and Mrs. Songoli’s young son fails to come home from school, fourteen-year-old Muna’s fortunes change for the better. Until then, her bedroom was a dank windowless cellar, her activities confined to cooking and cleaning. Over the years, she had grown used to being abused by the Songoli family—to being their slave.

Now that Scotland Yard has swarmed the Songoli house to investigate the disappearance of the son, Muna is given a real bedroom, real clothing, and treated, at least nominally, as a daughter. But her world remains confined. She is not allowed to go outside, doesn’t know how to read or write, and cannot speak English. At least that’s what the Songolis believe. Before long it becomes clear that young Muna is far cleverer—and her plans more terrifying—than the Songolis, or anyone else, can ever imagine.

Praise

“When you read about sadists who have brutalized their housekeepers or au pairs, you try not to think about what life was like for those poor slaveys. But Minette Walters lets her imagination run free in The Cellar. An intimate and upsetting story about Ebuka and Yetunde Songoli, a rich immigrant couple from an unnamed West African nation who claimed 8-year-old Muna from an orphanage and took her to England . . . [Walters] writes with the subtle cruelty and pitiless insights of [Ruth Rendell’s] alter ego, Barbara Vine.” —Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review

“A dark, disturbing tale told very, very well . . . A taut and harrowing exploration of man’s capacity to inflict pain and cruelty in the complete absence of a moral compass. There are no subplots or extraneous characters to distract from this powerful story . . . Walters tells Muna’s story in unsparing language . . . It is a remarkable achievement that starkly illustrates the horrors we are capable of inflicting upon one another.” —Terry Zobeck, Washington Independent Review of Books

“A compulsive (and gruesome) read. . . . The Cellar is a shocker. It’s one of those books that builds incrementally, page by page, getting worse and worse in the best possible ways before coming to a conclusion that defies classifications of ‘happy’ or ‘sad’ . . . There is no turning away from The Cellar once you start it, and that is chief among its many strengths . . . A powerful work . . . A multi-layered novel packed full to the brim of its pages with quiet horror and realism . . . If you are unfamiliar with Walters’ other work, you will want to acquaint yourself sooner rather than later.” —Joe Hartlaub, Bookreporter

Awards

A Deadly Pleasures Best Novel of the Year