Spies, science-fiction writers, and new wave icons populate this dazzling novel, which U.K. critics have already compared to such modern classics as Don DeLillo's Underworld. According to the Guardian: "The House of Rumour perhaps most resembles The Da Vinci Code, rewritten by an author with the gifts of characterisation, wit, and literacy." Jake Arnott's decade-spanning, continent-hopping novel mixes fascinating real-life figures with fictional characters as it moves briskly from WWII spy intrigue (featuring Ian Fleming) and occultism (Aleister Crowley) to the West Coast pulp science-fiction set (Philip K. Dick, Robert A. Heinlein - even L. Ron Hubbard) and the '80s U.K. new wave music scene. Larry Zagorski, a S.F. writer turned U.S. fighter pilot, searches for connections between what seem like disparate events while conspiracy theories begin to suggest the possibility of a single force behind them. Jake Arnott has written smart, bestselling crime fiction in the U.K. for years, but The House of Rumour marks an exciting shift - it's a genre-melding modern classic.
Larry Zagorski spins wild tales of fantasy worlds for pulp magazines. But as the Second World War hangs in the balance, the lines between imagination and reality are starting to blur. The truth is stranger than anything Larry could invent. But when he looks back on the 20th century, the past is as uncertain as the future. Just where does truth end and illusion begin?
It's thirty years since Harry Starks and his gang kept the underworld of Soho under control, but the consequences of their brutal reign are still being felt.
Julie McCluskey, the actress daughter of one of Starks' victims, has grown up without a father and now that she's discovered it was money from her father's murderers that put her through drama school, she's furious. Furious with her mother for accepting it, but even more furious with Harry Starks - and she's decided she wants revenge.
