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'A work of dazzling imagination and linguistic inventiveness' Observer Newgate Gaol, 1726. An anonymous writer sets down the words of Edgworth Bess as she confides the adventures and misfortunes that led her all too soon to the judgement of London: Cruelly deceived, Bess is cast out onto the streets of the wicked city - and by nightfall her ruin is already certain. What matters now is her survival of it. In that dangerous underworld known in thieves' cant as Romeville, she will learn new tricks and trades. And all begins with her fateful meeting, that very first night, with the corrupt thief-taker general Jonathan Wild. But it is the infamous gaol-breaker, Jack Sheppard, who will lay Romeville at her feet . . . Drawing on the true story that mesmerised eighteenth-century society, the acclaimed author of The Long Firm delivers a tour de force: a riveting, artful tale of crime and rough justice, love and betrayal. Rich in the street slang of the era, it vividly conjures up a murky world of illicit dens and molly-houses; a world where life was lived on the edge, in the shadow of that fatal tree - the gallows.
London. The 1960s. The capital is swinging, but underneath the boomtown there's a dark underbelly. Meet Harry Starks: club owner, racketeer, porn king, sociology graduate and keen Judy Garland fan. Harry's business is fronting violence with rough charm and cheap glamour; putting the frighteners on, performing menace while trying to desperately trying to jump the counter into legitimacy. Five characters tell five tales that combine in an extraordinary narrative that is both an explosively paced thriller and brilliantly imagined sociological and topographical portrait of sixties London.
'Hypnotic, feverish and altogether wonderful' (Guardian) - Jake Arnott's acclaimed successor to the bestselling LONG FIRM trilogy It's 1972 and as the dreams of the sixties give way to anger and political unrest, the charismatic anarchist Declan O'Connell commits suicide, leaving his boyfriend Pearson and fellow squatter Nina to try to make sense of what has happened. Enter Sweet Thing, a streetwise rent boy, who has an uncanny hold over glam rock star Johnny Chrome; and in the wings lurks Detective Sergeant Walker of the newly formed Bomb Squad, who knows more about O'Connell than anyone ever suspected. The course of all their lives is about to change forever - for better and for worse. In this taut, powerful novel, Jake Arnott portrays four people searching for a sense of identity, their emotional and sexual turmoil mirrored by the turbulence of the times. Bringing that era vividly to life, he captures the mood of Britain at a turning point in history.
It's thirty years since Harry Starks and his gang kept the underworld of Soho under control but the consequences of their brutal reign are still being felt. Julie McCluskey, the actress daughter of one of Starks' victims, has grown up without a father and now that she's discovered it was money from her father's murderers that put her through drama school, she's furious. Furious with her mother for accepting it, but even more furious with Harry Starks - and she's decided she wants revenge. Tony Meehan, journalist and part-time murderer ('I've only killed three') has added another occupation to his list: he's ghostwriting the autobiography of one of the Bullion Job (Brinks Mat) gang, a robbery in which Starks was also involved, and the gold's still missing. And then there's Gaz, who worked for Starks' rival Beardsley in the 80s and is now running bouncers, taking too many drugs, and playing a very dangerous game. Moving his focus on to the greedy 80s and the rave scene of the 90s, Arnott delivers another hard-edged, riveting, brilliant novel that will delight his many admirers and win him more.
'Whenever Jake Arnott's got a new book out, I drop everything knowing that the next couple of hours are going to be pure gangland bliss.' DAVID BOWIE Ranging from the Swinging Sixties to the Raving Nineties and with a cast that includes Machiavellian gangsters, politicians, bent coppers, actresses and gutter journalists, Jake Arnott's classic trilogy is at once sharply funny, relentlessly compelling, and frighteningly real. THE LONG FIRM is the cult bestseller that launched Jake Arnott as one of the most exciting new voices of the decade: 'A gangster novel every bit as cool, stylish and venomous as the London in which it's set' (Independent on Sunday) HE KILLS COPPERS is a 'mesmerizing, brilliant' (New York Times Book Review) literary thriller that delves into corruption on both sides of the law and at the heart of the state. TRUECRIME is a blistering take on Cool Britannia and London's underbelly in the 1990s, and 'the most expansive, ironical and funny novel of the series' (Daily Telegraph)
It's thirty years since Harry Starks and his gang kept the underworld of Soho under control but the consequences of their brutal reign are still being felt. Julie McCluskey, the actress daughter of one of Starks' victims, has grown up without a father and now that she's discovered it was money from her father's murderers that put her through drama school, she's furious. Furious with her mother for accepting it, but even more furious with Harry Starks - and she's decided she wants revenge. Tony Meehan, journalist and part-time murderer ('I've only killed three') has added another occupation to his list: he's ghostwriting the autobiography of one of the Bullion Job (Brinks Mat) gang, a robbery in which Starks was also involved, and the gold's still missing. And then there's Gaz, who worked for Starks' rival Beardsley in the 80s and is now running bouncers, taking too many drugs, and playing a very dangerous game. Moving his focus on to the greedy 80s and the rave scene of the 90s, Arnott delivers another hard-edged, riveting, brilliant novel that will delight his many admirers and win him more.
WINNER OF THE WINGATE LITERARY PRIZE 2020 When a dead body is found in the Thames, caught in the chains of HMS Belfast, it begins a search for a missing woman. A policeman, a documentary film-maker and an Irish nurse named Chrissie all respond to the death of the unknown woman in their own ways. London is a place of random meetings, shifting relationships - and some, like Chrissie, intersect with many. The wonderful Linda Grant weaves a tale around ideas of home; how London can be a place of exile or expulsion, how home can be a physical place or an idea, how all our lives intersect. 'Reminds us of the depth and strength of the communities that are our beloved London. Thank you' Philippe San...
2023: a trilogy by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu
The TARDIS is diverted to England in 1572, and the Sixth Doctor and Peri meet John Dee – ‘mathematician, astrologer, alchemist, magician, and the greatest mind of our time’. (‘Only of your time?’, the Doctor asks, unimpressed.) But what brought them here? When the Doctor discovers that Dee and his assistant have come across a ‘great disturbance in the cosmos, in the constellation of Cassiopeia,’ he realizes that they are all in terrible danger.
'A work of dazzling imagination and linguistic inventiveness' Observer Newgate Gaol, 1726. An anonymous writer sets down the words of Edgworth Bess as she confides the adventures and misfortunes that led her all too soon to the judgement of London: Cruelly deceived, Bess is cast out onto the streets of the wicked city - and by nightfall her ruin is already certain. What matters now is her survival of it. In that dangerous underworld known in thieves' cant as Romeville, she will learn new tricks and trades. And all begins with her fateful meeting, that very first night, with the corrupt thief-taker general Jonathan Wild. But it is the infamous gaol-breaker, Jack Sheppard, who will lay Romeville at her feet . . . Drawing on the true story that mesmerised eighteenth-century society, the acclaimed author of The Long Firm delivers a tour de force: a riveting, artful tale of crime and rough justice, love and betrayal. Rich in the street slang of the era, it vividly conjures up a murky world of illicit dens and molly-houses; a world where life was lived on the edge, in the shadow of that fatal tree - the gallows.