The Proof of My Innocence
A hilarious new novel from the bestselling author of Middle England
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
'My comfort read: anything by Jonathan Coe' Bob Mortimer
'Coe channels his anger and frustration at the direction his country has taken, as well as his abiding love for it, into prose of enduring beauty' Guardian
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Post-university life doesn’t suit Phyl. Time passes slowly, living with her parents and working a zero-hours contract at Heathrow Airport, while her budding plans of becoming a writer are going nowhere.
That is, until family friend Chris comes to stay. He’s been investigating a radical think tank, founded at Cambridge University in the 1980s, that’s been scheming to push the British government in an ever more extreme direction. When he follows this story to a conference in a rambling old hotel deep in the Cotswolds, events take a bizarre and sinister turn. Soon he is caught up in a world of cryptic clues, secret passages and, eventually, murder.
In the end, despite the efforts of a suitably eccentric detective, it falls to Phyl herself – ably assisted by Chris’s outspoken adopted daughter Rashida - to look for answers to the fatal mystery. But will they lie in contemporary politics, or in a literary enigma that is almost forty years old?
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'A new Jonathan Coe is always a treat . . . Coe is a master at exploring the pains of modern life' Rosamund Urwin, The Times
'Please, God … if there’s a next life, let me write as well as Jonathan Coe' Anthony Bourdain
'Probably the best English novelist of his generation' Nick Hornby
'Deeply pleasurable, and a lot of fun. You emerge from it glowing' iPaper
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Coe's delectable whodunit (after Bournville) combines shadowy right-wing politics and literary intrigue. It's 2022 and British magazine editor Christopher Swann is on the verge of exposing a right-wing think tank's plot against the National Health Service. After conservative prime minister Liz Truss is sworn in, the think tank holds a conference in an English country house, which Swann attends. There, he's mortally attacked, leaving behind a cryptic note. On the case is Pru Freeborne, an eccentric DI who's about to retire. What follows are three novels within the novel, in the respective styles of a cozy mystery, dark academia, and autofiction. In them, the murderer's identity, method, and motive vary, as Pru explores whether Swann was killed for having dirt on the conference attendees and their nefarious plot. Added to the mix is Phyl, an aspiring writer and recent university graduate who met Swann shortly before his death, while he was visiting Phyl's parents. As Phyl goes down a rabbit hole, she becomes convinced that Swann's killing is somehow connected to that of long-dead author Peter Cockerill (a reclusive Cockerill expert had also attended the conference and might have had his own reason to silence Swann). Coe's metatextual games are as fun as the caper plot. This is a blast.
