The Proof of My Innocence

A blistering political critique wrapped up in a murder mystery - from the bestselling author of MIDDLE ENGLANDPost-university life doesn't suit Phyl. Time passes slowly living back home with her parents, working a zero-hour contract serving Japanese food to holidaymakers at Heathrow's Terminal 5. As for her budding plans of becoming a writer, those are going nowhere.That is, until family friend Chris comes to stay. He's been on the path to uncover a sinister think-tank, founded at Cambridge University in the 1980s, that's been scheming to push the British government in a more extreme direction. One that's finally poised to put their plans into action.But speaking truth to power can be dangerous - and power will stop at nothing to stay on top.As Britain finds itself under the leadership of a new Prime Minister whose tenure will only last for seven weeks, Chris pursues his story to a conference being held deep in the Cotswolds, where events take a sinister turn and a murder enquiry is soon in progress. But will the solution to the mystery lie in contemporary politics, or in a literary enigma that is almost forty years old?Darting between decades and genres, THE PROOF OF MY INNOCENCE is a wickedly funny and razor-sharp new novel from one of Britain's most beloved novelists, showing how the key to understanding the present can often be found in the murkiest corners of the past.

Wonderfully accomplished and darkly funny. The Proof of My Innocence is a murder mystery, a satire on Britain's ever right-ward drift, culminating in Liz Truss; and an inquiry into truth and perception. Jonathan Coe gets better and better -- Luke Harding
A brilliant, shrewd, satirical novel – gimlet-eyed, funny, very clever and a searchingly profound look at the state of this strange country of ours. -- William Boyd
The premier satirist of great British crapness is on killer form in this gag-a-minute mystery - who but Coe would think to structure a book around the abysmal transport police mantra “See It. Say It. Sorted”? Observer
A funny, smart and innovative exploration of contemporary British political dynamics -- Nussaibah Younis
A wonderfully farcical and absurd book that puts into perspective the political chaos of post-Brexit Britain Foyles
Full of energy... a madcap caper, a sideways memoir, a tricksy jeu d’esprit that is also a quiet defence of fiction in a post-truth age, and enormous fun to read Guardian
Deeply pleasurable, and a lot of fun. You emerge from it glowing -- iPaper
A new Jonathan Coe is always a treat . . . Coe is a master at exploring the pains of modern life -- Rosamund Urwin The Times
Endlessly satisfying Spectator
For many in the UK, the last fourteen years have felt like living in an irredeemably bad novel. How wonderful, then, to mark the changes with Jonathan Coe’s wise and playful reprise of the years in which we lost the plot - and maybe gained some gentleness in its unravelling -- Lyndsey Stonebridge

Jonathan Coe was born in Birmingham in 1961. He is the award-winning, bestselling author of fifteen novels, including What a Carve Up!, The Rotters' Club, Middle England and, most recently, The Proof of My Innocence. He has won the Costa Novel Award, the Prix du Livre Europeen, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the Prix Medicis tranger and the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize, among many others. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His work has been translated into twenty-two languages. Jonathan Coe lives in London.

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