The Mother

(2006)

*Now available as an ebook (Kindle edition) for Australian readers. To download the book, go here.

(US limited edition Hardcover – Out of Print)

Hitchhiking along the Hume Highway, a woman searches for the man who killed her daughter. Her only clue—left in her daughter’s final phone message—is that the man has a tattoo on his left arm saying ‘Die Mother.’

With her daughter dead and with nothing to live for, the mother is on a path of self-destruction. Consumed by guilt and the desire for revenge, her personality and appearance begin to alter. Becoming almost wild, she forgets her real name and where she used to live and work.

Each driver she meets on her dangerous journey could be the killer—and each lift she accepts could be her last.

The Mother, my second novel, was first published in 2006 as a mass-market paperback by Hachette Australia.  This was followed in 2009 by a limited edition hardcover by US specialty press Thunderstorm Books, and a German edition, Die Mutter, in 2010 by Festa Verlag.

Blurbs:

“The Mother is one helluva read.  Sleek, dark, and impossible to put down.  Reading this one good woman’s descent into grief and madness felt like a sledgehammer to the stomach…but I couldn’t stop turning the pages.  The Mother did what every great book should do — it made me think.”
—Richard Chizmar, Cemetery Dance Magazine

“I love Brett McBean’s writing, and The Mother is McBean at the top of his form.  It’s a thrilling, scary, and heartbreaking story.  I highly recommend it.”
—John R. Little, Bram Stoker-winning author of The Memory Tree, Placeholders, and Miranda

“The Mother is a brilliant new offering from McBean that sees him slide among contemporaries such as Jack Ketchum and Richard Laymon. McBean manages to capture something rare in The Mother – a book that is both moving and horrific, demonstrating that good horror can do more than just scare your pants off. The Mother does for hitchhiking what Psycho did for showers and I guarantee you’ll think more than twice before thumbing a ride again.”
—Mark Smith-Briggs, Oz Horrorscope

Reviews:

Horror Drive-In

HorrorScope

Australian Crime Fiction Database

ScaryMinds

(Australian mass-market paperback edition – Out of Print)