The Fatal Tree
$33.12
- Paperback
352 pages
- Release Date
13 November 2017
Summary
Edgworth Bess: A Tale of Crime and Survival in Old London
Newgate Gaol, 1726. An anonymous writer records the confessions of Edgworth Bess, recounting the adventures and misfortunes that led her to London’s harsh judgment.
Cruelly deceived and cast onto the streets of the wicked city, Bess faces immediate ruin. Survival becomes her only focus.
In Romeville, the dangerous underworld of thieves, she learns new tricks and trades, beginning with a fateful encounter with …
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781473637764 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 1473637767 |
| Author: | Jake Arnott |
| Publisher: | Hodder & Stoughton |
| Imprint: | Sceptre |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 352 |
| Release Date: | 13 November 2017 |
| Weight: | 248g |
| Dimensions: | 196mm x 128mm x 28mm |
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Critics Review
A work of dazzling imagination and linguistic inventiveness
A work of dazzling imagination and linguistic inventiveness - Observer
A rambunctious narrative of venery, theft, death and a devil-may-care braggadocio, its doomed love story undercuts and counterpoints the swagger with a touching melancholy. Bess, Jack and Jonathan were real people and this confident linguistic pastiche reimagines them with infectious energy. - Daily MailJake Arnott, who is probably best known for excellent novels such as The Long Firm about London gangsters in the 1960s, has done much more than update the work of his 18th-century predecessors. Unlike them, he shows the citizens of Romeville as people, not as folk heroes or bogeymen … Arnott explores what poor Bess calls ‘the felony of love’, a crime that is not on the statute book. The result is powerful, poignant and readable. - SpectatorJack’s awkward courtship of Bess is a highlight of the book - Arnott’s best so far - and genuinely moving … an astonishingly vivid act of ventriloquy that breathes life into infamous corpses - Evening StandardThe narrative is woven through with vividly portrayed characters, from Bess and Jack themselves to the superbly realised, wonderfully named Punk Alice and Poll Maggot, the transvestite Princess Seraphina; and the mixed-race heavy, Blueskin. Arnott delights too in the secret language of thieves - ObserverBawdy and rich with vivid evocations of the past … The Fatal Tree is Arnott on beguiling form, with the libidinous Bess a wonderfully multifaceted character. Who would have thought that a cult crime writer would become the Daniel Defoe of our day? - i NewsA seductive, cunning tale of crime, punishment and love among the thieves, prostitutes and charlatans of 1720’s London. Laced with vibrant detail and deliciously evocative period language, Arnott’s atmospheric novel is a Hogarth print come to life … With a cast of delightfully convincing characters and lines that are reminiscent of Dickens or Wilde, Arnott has triumphantly breathed life into history - and the result is glorious. - AttitudeA dazzling mix of fact and fiction … the Hogarthian tale of a Harlot’s Progress - Sunday HeraldAbout The Author
Jake Arnott
Jake Arnott was born in 1961, and lives in London. He is the author of THE LONG FIRM, published by Sceptre in 1999 and subsequently made into an acclaimed BBC TV series. His second novel, HE KILLS COPPERS, was also made into a series by Channel 4. He has since published the novels TRUECRIME, JOHNNY COME HOME, THE DEVIL’S PAINTBRUSH and THE HOUSE OF RUMOUR.
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