The Long Firm (Paperback)
by Jake Arnott
| Format: | Paperback 352 pages |
|---|
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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 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 a brilliantly imagined sociological and topographical portrait of sixties London.
Book details
Published
17/02/2000
Publisher
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
ISBN
9780340748787
Publisher and industry reviews
Jacket review
'This is pulp fiction so polished as to be immaculate' -- New Statesman 'Truly fascinating...Arnott's ability to powerfully resurrect an era is astonishing' -- Guardian 'Gripping...slumming it doesn't get much better than this' -- Time Out 'It is compulsive reading, powerful writing with an evocative feel for the bleaker side of the Swinging Sixties' -- The Times
UK Kirkus review
Harry Starks reigns over the dark underworld of 1960s London Soho. His empire is fronted with a veneer of cheap respectability that covers a variety of seedy rackets, backed up with a level of violence that is surprising for such a keen Judy Garland fan. Arnott has used a brilliant and elegant device to tell the story of this strange, sociopathic character. The personal stories of five characters - a young gay man, a corrupt impoverished aristocrat, Jack 'the Hat' McVitie, a B-list actress with East End ties, and a sociology lecturer - build a narrative that charts Harry's rise and fall along with their own, constructing a vivid picture of a complex man and a milieu where the borders between showbusiness, power and crime are blurred. (Kirkus UK)
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