Rustication: A Novel - Softcover

"Anybody who thought The Quincunx's 1,248 pages were too much will rush back to it after reading this excellent [327]-page gothic pageturner." Patrick Neale, Booksellers' Choice, The Bookseller "Palliser creates a deliciously gothic atmosphere...an enjoyable read for a misty autumn night." Stephanie Merritt, The Observer "...Palliser's hold on his narrative is enough to turn it into an exercise in pure form. As in a superior detective novel, character, scene and incidental detail fade away and all that remains is the thrill of the chase..." The Spectator "Palliser adds the modern pleasure of ambiguity to this rich and authentic confection of Gothic suspense." The Independent "Few historical novelists weave such complexly absorbing plots as Charles Palliser and Rustication shows him delighting in his skill...a twisting, mesmerising story." The Sunday Times "For Christmas I hope someone gives me a copy of Charles Palliser's new novel, Rustication: for fans of The Quincunx it's been a long, 15-year wait." Lucy Lethbridge, Books of the Year 2013, The Observer "...a supremely confident performance." Literary Review "...deliciously wicked, twisted gothic tale..." The Scotsman "Palliser builds a sense of excitement with panache, tightening and knotting each strand of the web enclosing Richard with practised fingers, and he is an accomplished pasticheur of Victorian cadences." Financial Times "...cleverly done, with the reader left wondering right up to the end." The Metro

Charles Palliser's work has been hailed as "so compulsively absorbing that reality disappears" (New York Times). Since his extraordinary debut, The Quincunx, his works have sold over one million copies worldwide. With his new novel, Rustication, he returns to the town of Thurchester, which he evoked so hauntingly in The Unburied. It is winter 1863, and Richard Shenstone, aged seventeen, has been sent down-"rusticated"-from Cambridge under a cloud of suspicion. Addicted to opium and tormented by sexual desire, he finds temporary refuge in a dilapidated old mansion on the southern English coast inhabited by his newly impoverished mother and his sister, Effie. Soon, graphic and threatening letters begin to circulate among his neighbors, and Richard finds himself the leading suspect in a series of crimes and misdemeanors ranging from vivisection to murder. Atmospheric, lurid, and brilliantly executed, Rustication confirms Palliser's reputation as "our leading contemporary Victorian novelist" (Guardian).