Shock City

Series

Name: Shock City   Number: 1

Synopsis

Manchester, 1832: cholera at the gates, a murder in the library.

Description Manchester, May 1832. The town is a furnace of smoke, money and rumour, and cholera is coming up the Irwell. At the opening of the Fox Library – a glittering iron-and-glass cathedral built for the Indian-born widow Roshanara Fox – the mill-owner William Cording is shot dead in front of the men who run the city. Days later his assassin is found hanged in a locked tower room. Sykes, the library’s young engineer, and Abiah Drake, a former East India Company agent turned librarian, must trace a conspiracy running from the Ganges to Angel Meadow: a plan to wall the Irish poor inside their own slum.

Praise for Previous Work

‘Blincoe writes with a sharp, lethal elegance … stylish, dark, and compulsively readable.’ —The Guardian

‘A master of fast-paced, contemporary noir with an unmistakable literary edge.’ —The Times

‘Blincoe combines slick narrative pacing with genuine depth and intelligence.’ —Daily Telegraph

‘(On Burning Paris) A heady combination of love, war and a grand narrative scheme. Burning Paris is a highly topical novel and the historical detail is superb.’ —Daily Telegraph

‘(On Burning Paris) Blincoe evokes the turbulence of these terrible months of siege, hunger and bloodshed in Paris exceptionally well … clever [and] ambitious.’ —The Guardian

‘(On Jernigan Boy Gang) Fiercely original … Blincoe’s world is dangerous, funny, and relentlessly entertaining.’ —Time Out

‘(On Jernigan Boy Gang) Blincoe has a brilliant ear for dialogue and a sharp eye for the absurdities of modern life.’ —The Observer