The Late Candidate

In 1980s London, Black political leaders who can straddle the racial divide are a rarity.

So when a rising Black politician, Aston Edwards, is murdered, the effects quickly ripple through London’s Afro-Caribbean community.

Then a young Black boy is arrested for his murder, surrounded by rumours of an affair with Aston’s wife.

Sammy Dean, journalist-turned-investigator, is determined to find the truth. When a Black activist’s death is written off as a suicide, Sam begins to think the two cases are linked. With tensions running high, can Sam find the truth before the city erupts?

The Late Candidate is a gritty and authentic representation of London’s multi-cultural history, wrapped up in a tense thriller.

Reviews

Praise for Mike Phillips
‘This is Mike Phillips’s best novel, brutal and caring, totally authentic’
The Times

‘Phillips delivers his seamy tale with an enviably warm spareness of effect’
Sunday Times

‘An incisive study of immigrant experience wrapped up in a gripping thriller’
Times Literary Supplement

‘The Best British thriller in years… A novel that seems to have been written for a purpose; it deals with the black British community as something other than a problem or a political cliché’
Marie Claire

‘Could have come from the pen of the master, Raymond Chandler’
Today

A thriller which maintains pace and provides excitements rooted in reality … a winner’
Guardian

‘There’s much here to suggest that Phillips could be one of our bravest, most incisive social commentators’
Mail on Sunday

Phillips’ depictions of urban London share more with Harlem and Los Angeles than the English drawing rooms of P.D. James and Ruth Rendell’
Financial Times

‘Phillips… gives a mean streetwise documentary edge to his hero’s hunt for a witness’
Sunday Express

‘Mr Phillips writes in a precise uncluttered style that suits the detective novel’s ritualistic form. But it is the sensibility of his hero – a black man – that lends freshness to the form itself’
The New York Times Book Review

‘As a political thriller it has something to say about multi-cultural Britain that is both revealing and intelligent … a good novel, deftly handled and deserving of praise’
Time Out

About the author

Mike Phillips is a writer and academic. He is the author of an award-winning crime fiction series and winner of the Crime Writers’ Association Silver Dagger. He served as a Trustee for the National Lottery Memorial Fund and was a member of the independent ‘Windrush: Lessons Learned Review’ commissioned by the Home Secretary and which reported in 2020.