It's 4 a.m. and Cathy Mason is watching dawn break over the Lovelace estate. By the end of the day, her community will be a crime scene. By the end of the week, her city will be on fire.

In this gripping thriller, a death at police hands has repercussions far beyond one family plunged into grief. When violence grips Cathy's estate, the dead man becomes a useful tactic (or an urgent threat) in political games at the highest level. So while lives are at risk on Cathy Mason's estate, across London in Westminster, careers are being made, or ruined.

From a Home Secretary's attempts to unseat a Prime Minister, to a new Met Police Commissioner fighting for his job, to families torn apart, Ten Days shows what happens when politics, policing and the hard realities of living in London explosively collide.

A timely thriller about devious politicians, tensions in the Met and anger on the streets . . . Gillian Slovo has demonstrated a knack for doing what few other writers are doing right now: tackling the world we live in head on -- LOUISE DOUGHTY * * Guardian * *
A page-turner intent on keeping you avidly on edge into the small hours * * Metro * *
An extraordinary novel - a page-turner thick with greed, ambition, love and secrets, and simultaneously an incisive portrayal of power and powerlessness in today's Britain -- KAMILA SHAMSIE
A vivid portrait of the realities of power in Britain * * Daily Mail * *
Ten days of tension, trouble and tough truths . . a cracker * * VAL MCDERMID * *
Ten Days tackles the dangers we all face when politics and policing collide. The result: an unputdownable Slovo read -- SHAMI CHAKRABARTI
The drama is provided by Slovo's eye for detail - she seeks out the exact wrong decisions and blunders that led to the biggest policing-meltdown in the city's history . . . Slovo captures the anger, fear and tension * * The Times * *

Gillian Slovo is a playwright and the author of thirteen books, including five crime novels, the courtroom drama Red Dust, which was made into a feature film starring Hilary Swank and Chiwetel Ejiofor, and the Orange Prize-shortlisted Ice Road. She co-authored the play Guantanamo - Honor Bound to Defend Freedom, which was staged internationally. Her research for her play The Riots inspired Ten Days. Gillian Slovo was President of English PEN from 2010 to 2013 and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She was born in South Africa and lives in London.