The Long Firm - Softcover

" Harry, a club-owning gangster, takes you through '60s London meeting people such as The Krays, a bent Lord, a Barbara Windsor clone and a series of "pretty boys". "Arnott's immaculate storytelling enthralls and compells. The slickest book of the summer " MINX, SEPTEMBER 1999 'This is a gangster novel that recaptures to perfection the world of the sixties...Good stuff' Newcastle Evening Chronicle The story rattles along at a tremendous pace, and joyfully evokes the spirit of both the original era of Cool Brittannia, and its darker, underworld shadow.' Lancashire Evening Post 'Jake Arnott's ear for dialogue and eye for detail is so acute that the end result is a literary paradox - sophisticated pulp fiction' Metro 'An immensely readable and stylish gangster thriller set in the 60s...all very convincingly done and is a riveting read. A measure of Arnott's skill is the way that the reader wants the vile, murderous Harry to succeed' Gay Times 'Fantastic - I absolutely couldn't put it down' -- Terry O'Neill 'It's so realistic, it makes Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels seem like Listen With Mother' -- Elle 'the finest first novel of the year' -- Gay Times 'a powerful debut' -- The Bookseller 'Arnott brilliantly captures the gaudy, glamorous, seedy and sordid side of the 60s underworld and show business society. A must-read' -- Elle 'Arnott's creation of the decadent, dangerous atmosphere of the times is immaculate. His prose is as smooth as a seersucker suit, as sweet as a purple heart. Suck it and see' -- The Observer 'As polished as a brass knuckleduster...strong-arm stuff, which zings with an authentic low-life argot and grips the reader with its head-in-a-vice portrait of the ugly glamour of the era'

In London in the 1960s, the capital is swinging, but underneath the boomtown there's a dark underbelly. Meet Harry Starks: club owner, racketeer, porn king, sociology graduate and keen Judy Garland fan. Harry's business is fronting violence with rough charm and cheap glamour; putting the frighteners on, performing menace while trying to desperately trying to jump the counter into legitimacy. Five narratives chart Harry's rise, fall, and eventual escape. Each one interlocks into an epic testimony where high life meets low life and real and imaginary characters spar with each other as the seedy end of the swinging sixties is revealed in ruthless verisimilitude. Five characters tell five tales that combine in an extraordinary narrative that is both an explosively paced thriller and brilliantly imagined sociological and topographical portrait of sixties London.