Bad Penny Blues - Softcover

Unsworth, Cathi

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1846686784 ISBN 13: 9781846686788

Publisher: Serpent's Tail, 2009

Synopsis

This is a colourful, evocative novel set in Sixties Soho from the author of "The Singer". Police Constable Pete Bradley has one year in the force and dreams of moving up the ladder. He's assigned as an aid to CID and working a routine nightshift with his partner when they stumble across a young woman's body. She was working as a prostitute when she was strangled, her body dumped by a riverbank. His search for her killer brings him deep into Soho's underbelly. Meanwhile Stella, a young fashion designer with a promising career ahead of her, is woken by terrifying nightmares that echo the last hours of the dead women. Sixties London explodes in all its ferocious colour, with fascists and Teds, migrants and hippies living in close proximity. "Bad Penny Blues" is a tender paean to the city, a novel with a twisted mystery at its heart.

About this title

Review:

[Advance praise for BPB]: Bad Penny Blues is the English Black Dahlia and will establish Cathi Unsworth as the First Lady of Noir Fiction. (David Peace David Peace 2009-09-01)

(Advance praise for Bad Penny Blues:) A haunting and utterly absorbing London noir that takes us to all the bright lights and dark places of the big city (Jake Arnott)

London's leading lady of noir fiction (Iain Aitch Guardian Guide 2009-03-28)

One of the upcoming stars of British crime fiction. (N/A The Bookseller 2009-04-10)

Another tour de force... Cathi Unsworth's ability to create the feel of the period is such that background knowledge is immaterial... Authentically atmospheric and very evocative, the book's song-title chapter headings supply an inbuilt soundtrack. (Laura Wilson Guardian 2009-11-07)

[A] fast-paced tale sure to please fans of crime writers Ken Bruen and Jake Arnott... a confident and convincing voice. (Jennifer Ryan Image 2009-12-01)

Cements her reputation for eerie plots, evocative settings and deeply-drawn characters, should propel her into a new league... the story, which is loaded with pace, Unsworth has incorporated a true murder mystery... Unsworth brilliantly captures the era... (Henry Sutton Daily Mirror 2009-12-11)

Bad Penny Blues isn't only one of the best crime novels this year, it's one of the best of the decade. (Gordon Harries NeedleScratchStatic.com 2009-12-11)

There's something about the textured layers of Cathi Unsworth's third novel that effortlessly draw the reader into the dark and disturbing environment she creates... Unsworth lives up to her growing reputation as one of the UK's stars of noir crime fiction, combining hardboiled prose with vivid characters and a lucid sense of place... a wholly absorbing thriller, heralding an accomplished author who could soon become a stalwart of the British crime scene. (Yasmin Sulaiman The List 2009-12-03)

A meticulous examination of the postwar British beehive... Unsworth thrashes her fellow practitioners in the field... Period vernacular is placed in young mouths in a way that makes slang feel as fresh as if you were watching a monochrome classic for the first time... she enters a pantheon of writers exploring London lowlife that extends from Patrick Hamilton and Colin MacInnes. Like the crackling jukebox tunes of the time, Bad Penny Blues unwinds toward an inevitable refrain that deepens the reading pleasure. It's smart noir entertainment with the bitter aftertaste of truth. (Christopher Fowler FT 2009-12-12)

Book Description:

Colourful, evocative novel set in Sixties Soho from the author of The Singer

About this edition

• Publisher: Serpent's Tail
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1846686784
• ISBN 13: 9781846686788
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448