Shrines of Gaiety
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- €13.99
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- €13.99
Publisher Description
Brought to you by Penguin.
1926, and in a country still recovering from the Great War, London has become the focus for a delirious new nightlife. In the clubs of Soho, peers of the realm rub shoulders with starlets, foreign dignitaries with gangsters, and girls sell dances for a shilling a time.
The notorious queen of this glittering world is Nellie Coker, ruthless but also ambitious to advance her six children, including the enigmatic eldest, Niven whose character has been forged in the crucible of the Somme. But success breeds enemies, and Nellie's empire faces threats from without and within. For beneath the dazzle of Soho's gaiety, there is a dark underbelly, a world in which it is all too easy to become lost.
With her unique Dickensian flair, Kate Atkinson brings together a glittering cast of characters in a truly mesmeric novel that captures the uncertainty and mutability of life; of a world in which nothing is quite as it seems.
'This is the perfect novel for uncertain times.' THE TIMES
'I can think of few writers other than Dickens who can match it' SUNDAY TIMES
'Brilliant' RICHARD OSMAN
© Kate Atkinson 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Over the course of the last three decades, Kate Atkinson has written crime fiction, period novels and stories with a supernatural element. In Shrines of Gaiety, she combines all three with a dash of history, drawing inspiration from the real-life story of “Night Club Queen” Kate Meyrick for this endlessly enjoyable murder mystery. Opening outside the gates of Holloway Prison as notorious club owner Nellie Coker is released to continue her dubious reign over nightlife in 1930s’ London, Atkinson gradually unspools a lively narrative as twisty and puzzling as the murky Soho backstreets the story plays out on. Threats to the ill-gotten Coker empire lurk behind every corner—from mysterious figures out for revenge, provincial librarians with hidden agendas, haunting spectres dripping retribution, police officers both virtuous and corrupt—and even Nellie’s motley brood of six self-interested children can’t be trusted. The ongoing turf war wraps around another sinister plot thread concerning a spate of disappearances involving young women, and as more details are revealed, it becomes clearer that there is a far more malevolent evil than the Coker’s criminal enterprises to contend with. It takes a long time for all the vividly characterised, wildly unforgettable players in this cat-and-mouse game to move into their position on the board, but keeping up with the rapidly evolving landscape of who knows what, who is spying on who, and whose loyalties have shifted where, sustains momentum to the end. Atkinson’s animated writing style brings humour and charm to her portrayal of the razzle dazzle masking London’s seedy underbelly, and the pleasure-seeking desperation of a nation emerging from the hellish psychological pits of the First World War.