My Lethal Obsession - Carl Wistreich

My Lethal Obsession - Carl Wistreich

Carl Wistreich

£23.99
Pre-order

Published 8 October 2026

Order now and we’ll post it on publication day. We take payment today and hold your order until then; if the publisher moves the date we’ll email you, and you can cancel for a full refund at any point before it ships.

  • Pages · 288 pages
  • Publication Date · 08/10/2026
  • Genre · Historical fiction
Collect in store Pick it up free from the shop in Oxford's Covered Market, usually quicker than the post.
Delivery Standard tracked £1.99, free on orders over £20. Express tracked £2.99.
Book Lovers' Happy Hour Three cocktails matched to your taste, three books chosen for you, an hour and a half at the bar. £60 per person. Book a place →
Blending family drama with page-turning suspense, My Lethal Obsession confronts the eternal hatred one group has faced throughout history in very human, very personal terms, and honors the unbreakable will to survive and begin anew. Gideon Wistreich is haunted by visions of his family's persecution across generations. His visions compel him to abandon his ambition to become a lawyer and embark on a quest to understand why his family, and Jews as a people, have been targets of hatred for millennia. On a deeply personal level, Gideon is tortured by survivor's guilt, struggling to answer why his grandfather chose to flee east at the outset of World War II. The decision led to imprisonment by the Russians in a gulag in Siberia-yet ultimately saved his immediate family-while many of their educated and accomplished relatives who remained in Poland perished. Gideon's relentless search for truth ultimately places him in the crosshairs of a Cardinal destined to become the next Pope, inciting an encounter that will impact Gideon's family forever. The modern-day narrative and characters are fictional and the earlier generations are creatively drawn from real people and events recorded in family memoirs, which describe those who survived, and those who did not.

Only at Gulp Fiction

Book Lovers' Happy Hour

An hour and a half at the bar, with three cocktails matched to your taste and three books chosen for you. Tell us what you like when you book, and we'll have them waiting when you arrive.

  • 1½ hours
  • £60 per person
  • 3 cocktails, 3 books
Book Happy Hour

Up to four of you can come — book a place each and choose the same time slot, then tell us who you're with. For larger groups, email gulpfictionbooks@gmail.com and we'll arrange it.

Three customers at the window table in Gulp Fiction, cocktails in hand beside a stack of books, with Oxford's Covered Market visible through the glass

Collect in store

Order online and pick it up from the shop. It's free, and usually quicker than the post.

Find us

Units 28–29, Covered Market, Oxford OX1 3DU. Mon–Wed 10–5, Thu–Sat 10–10, Sun 11–4.

Book a table

The bar is open late Thursday to Saturday. Reserve a table for a drink among the books.