Featured on The Book Show on Sky Arts on 2 June 2011.

The new and last Beryl Bainbridge is a double murder mystery and a bittersweet masterpiece of the kind with which she has made her reputation.

Comparison: Fay Weldon
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Synopsis

In the rainswept summer of 1968, Rose sets off for the United States from Kentish Town to meet a man she knows as Washington Harold, in her suitcase a polka-dot dress and a one-way ticket. In a country rocked by the assassination of Martin Luther King and a rising groundswell of violence, they are to join forces in search of the charismatic and elusive Dr Wheeler - oracle, guru and redeemer - whom Rose credits with rescuing her from a terrible childhood, and against whom Harold nurses a silent grudge. As they trail their quarry, zigzagging through America in a camper van, the odd couple - Rose, damaged child of grey postwar Britain, and nervous, obsessive, driven Harold - encounter a ragged counter-cultural army of Wheeler's acolytes, eddying among dangerous currents of obscure dissent and rage. But somewhere in the wide American darkness, Dr Wheeler is waiting.

Reviews

‘Hilarious and chilling. Bainbridge describes humans as they really are, not as they would wish to be’ Patrick Neale

‘Reminds us both how good a writer she was and why she was so respected and loved’ Rodney Troubridge

‘Sometimes sinister and always brilliant…set to be a real publishing event’ Sue Scholes

About the Author

Beryl Bainbridge wrote seventeen novels, two travel books and five plays for stage and television. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize five times, she won literary awards including the Whitbread Prize and Author of the Year at the British Book Awards. She died in July 2010. More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation