"David Lloyd George is at Chequers for the weekend with his mistress Frances Stevenson, fretting about the fact that his involvement in selling public honours is about to be revealed by one Victor Grayson.
Victor is a bisexual hedonist and former firebrand Socialist MP turned secret service informant. Intent on rebuilding his profile as the leader of the revolutionary Left, he doesn't know exactly how much of a hornet's nest he's stirred up. Doesn't know that this is, in fact, his last day.
No one really knows what happened to Victor Grayson - he vanished one night in late September 1920, having threatened to reveal all he knew about the prime minister's involvement in selling honours. Was he murdered by the British government? By enemies in the Socialist movement (who he had betrayed in the war)? Did he fall in the Thames drunk? Did he vanish to save his own life, and become an antiques dealer in Kent?
Whatever the truth, Green Ink imagines what might have been with brio, humour and humanity; and is a reminder that the past was once as alive as we are today."
"Revolutionary, poet, lover. Robber, murderer, spy. May 1907 and a young Stalin is in London for a conference of Russian communists. With Lenin, Trotsky, and Rosa Luxemburg among others he battles to keep the party radical, while dodging the attentions of the Czar’s secret police. He also finds himself drawn to a fiery Finnish activist, Elli Vuokko, beginning a relationship that is as dangerous as it is complicated.
Electrically-imagined, immersive and compulsively readable, Sell Us the Rope hums with the visceral energy of revolutionary fervour - Liz Jensen
Original, adept and confident... What can I say, except that I wish I had written it myself - Hilary Mantel
A fascinating and immersive imagining of real events that both challenges and illuminates history. - Benjamin Myers
Boldly conceived, precisely imagined, beautifully written. - Michael Stewart
Stephen May’s writing is convincing and engaging in this brilliant tale of revolutionary shenanigans in London. - Suzanne Joinson"
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