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About The Cleaner

A major New Zealand TV show - Dark City: The Cleaner

An international bestseller and one of the top-selling novels in New Zealand's history, Paul Cleave's dark thriller is a brilliant, bloody masterpiece.

Joe is in control of everything in his simple life - both his day job as a janitor for the police department and his "night work." He isn't bothered by the daily news reports of the Christchurch Carver, who, they say, has murdered seven women. Joe knows, though, that the Carver killed only six. He knows that for a fact, and he's determined to find the copycat. He'll punish him for the one, then frame him for the other six. It's the perfect plan because he already knows he can outwit the police.

All he needs now is to take care of all the women who keep getting in his way, including his odd, overprotective mother and Sally, the maintenance worker who sees him as a replacement for her dead brother. Then there's the mysterious Melissa, the only woman to have ever understood him, but whose fantasies of blackmail and torture don't have a place in Joe's investigation.

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'Dark, bloody, and gripping ... classic noir fiction' - John Connolly

'Cleave uses words like lethal weapons' - New York Times Book Review

'Compelling, dark, and perfectly paced, New Zealand writer Cleave's psychological thriller explores the evil lurking in us all, working relentless magic until the very last page.' — Booklist

'Relentlessly gripping, deliciously twisted and shot through with a vein of humour that's as dark as hell.' —Mark Billingham

'An intense adrenaline rush from start to finish.' —S J Watson

"A riveting and all too realistic thriller.' —Tess Gerritsen

'A gripping thriller ...I couldn't put it down' Meg Gardiner

'This very clever novel did my head in time and again.' —Michael Robotham

'Cleave's whirligig plot mesmerises.' — People