City on Fire - Softcover

"Dickensian, massively entertaining, as close to a great American novel as this century has produced" (Stephen King)

"You’re soon zipping through Hallberg’s vividly realised New York like a child discovering Hogwarts for the first time" (The Times)

"Extraordinary...dazzling... a sprawling, generous, warm-hearted epic of 1970s New York" (Observer)

"Staggering...gloriously ambitious" (Independent on Sunday)

"A tour de force" (Daily Mail)

"Exciting, imaginative and perfectly paced" (Daily Telegraph)

"A novel of head-snapping ambition and heart-stopping power – a novel that attests to its young author’s boundless and unflagging talents" (New York Times)

"This book felt to me like a DVD boxset, in that each chapter was so short that I’d find myself reading just one more, just one more, and then find myself still reading an hour later. I love this book: this is definitely for me the best book we’ve done on the Book Club this year." (Simon Mayo Radio 2 Book Club)

"A big, stunning first novel and an amazing virtual reality machine, whisking us back to New York City in the 1970s ... It’s a novel of head-snapping ambition and heart-stopping power – a novel that attests to its young author’s boundless and unflagging talents." (Michiko Kakutani New York Times)

"It’s a big ask to give up a week of your reading life to an unknown guy from North Carolina whose middle name is Risk. However, then you start reading this classic thriller set in the graffiti-splashed 1970s New York, about a girl called Sam being shot in Central Park, and it’s immediately apparent that here is a writer who knows how to do suspense. You’re soon zipping through Hallberg’s vividly realised New York like a child discovering Hogwarts for the first time." (The Times)

‘The best book we’ve done on the Book Club this year’ - Simon Mayo Radio 2 Book Club

‘A novel of head-snapping ambition and heart-stopping power’ – Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

‘Love The Wire? Then read this’ – GQ

‘Extraordinary...dazzling... a sprawling, generous, warm-hearted epic of 1970s New York’ – Observer

‘You’re soon zipping through Hallberg’s vividly realised New York like a child discovering Hogwarts for the first time’ – The Times

‘The kind of exuberant, zeitgeisty novel, like The Bonfire of the Vanities or The Goldfinch, that you’ll either love, hate or pretend to have read’ – Vogue

‘The hype is justified: this is the year’s must-read book’ - Shortlist


NEW YORK. 1977. BE THERE WHEN IT EXPLODES.

It’s New Year’s Eve, 1976, and New York is a city on the edge. As midnight approaches, a blizzard sets in – and amidst the fireworks, an unmistakable sound rings out across Central Park. Gunshots. Two of them.

The search for the shooter will bring together a rich cast of New Yorkers. From the reluctant heirs to one of the city's greatest fortunes, to a couple of Long Island kids drawn to the punk scene downtown. From the newly arrived and enchanted, to those so sick of the city they want to burn it to the ground. All these lives are connected to one another – and to the life that still clings to that body in the park. Whether they know it or not, they are bound up in the same story – a story where history and revolution, love and art, crime and conspiracy are all packed into a single shell, ready to explode.

Then, on July 13th, 1977, the lights go out in New York City.