Angelmaker

Angelmaker

by NickHarkaway (Author), NickHarkaway (Author)

Synopsis

From the acclaimed author of "The Gone-Away World" - here comes a new riveting action spy thriller, blistering gangster noir, and howling absurdist comedy: a propulsively entertaining tale about a mobster's son and a retired secret agent who are forced to team up to save the world. All Joe Spork wants is a quiet life. He repairs clockwork and lives above his shop in a wet, unknown bit of London. The bills don't always get paid and he's single and has no prospects of improving his lot, but at least he's not trying to compete with the reputation of Mathew "Tommy Gun" Spork, his infamous criminal dad. Edie Banister lives quietly and wishes she didn't. She's nearly ninety and remembers when she wasn't. She's a former superspy and now she's...well...old. Worse yet, the things she fought to save don't seem to exist anymore, and she's beginning to wonder if they ever did. When Joe fixes one particularly unusual device, his life is suddenly upended. The client? Unknown. And the device? It's a 1950s doomsday machine. And having triggered it, Joe now faces the wrath of both the government and a diabolical South Asian dictator, Edie's old arch-nemesis. With Joe's once-quiet world now populated with mad monks, psychopathic serial killers, scientific geniuses and threats to the future of conscious life in the universe, he realises that the only way to survive is to muster the courage to fight, help Edie complete a mission she gave up years ago, and pick up his father's old gun...

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 576
Edition: First Edition
Publisher: William Heinemann
Published: 02 Feb 2012

ISBN 10: 043402094X
ISBN 13: 9780434020942
Book Overview: An adventure story, a war story, and a love story, all wound into one brilliant narrative that runs like clockwork.

Media Reviews
Angelmaker is another cracking book from Nick Harkaway. It's a mix of sci-fi, steampunk, adventure and romance and the mix of genres work really well together ... Harkaway's Angelmaker is a brilliant piece of escapism. It's a wonderful example of how an irreverent approach to much loved genres can lead to a truly great story. Nudge This brilliant, boundless mad genius of a book runs on its own frenetic energy, and bursts with infinite wit, inventive ambition and damn fine storytelling. You finish reading it in gape-mouthed awe and breathless admiration, having experienced something very special indeed. -- Matt Haig, author of The Radleys You're in for a treat... Dickens meets Mervyn Peake in a modern Mother London. -- William Gibson Nick Harkaway's joyfully reckless invention is as intricate as clockwork...Edie has a tangled history, the uncovering of which is one of the chief pleasures of Nick Harkaway's novel...is one of the most enjoyable books I've read in ages...Like his debut The Gone-Away World, this is a joyful display of reckless, delightful invention, on a par with the rocket-powered novels of Neal Stephenson, if in rather more ironically diffident English form. Ideas come zinging in from all corners, and do so with linguistic verve and tremendous humour. Even the bad-tempered pug is funny and accurate in every detail...brilliantly entertaining, and the last hundred pages are pure, unhinged delight. What a splendid ride. -- Patrick Ness Guardian Trying to categorise this big, wildly imaginative novel is enough to tie the brain in knots; it's a comedy, a thriller, a crazy fantasy ... Harkaway has created a wonderfully entertaining, unguessable kaleidoscope of a novel. And e-book readers will miss the additional pleasure of a hardback that looks as gorgeously ornate as its contents. -- Kate Saunders The Times
Author Bio
Nick Harkaway is the author of The Gone-Away World and Angelmaker, and of an even better and more exciting novel whose name will probably end up being Tigerman, or possibly Man, Island, Boy. Contrary to what you may have heard, the title really is the hard part. When he's not writing, he spends his time being the husband of a brilliant lawyer and the dad of two small children who are secretly bent on world domination. He likes Italian red wine and lives in a bit of London where the taxis still have a horse at the pointy end.