64 Clarke
by Andrew Holmes
Six-year-old Ben Snape went missing on a busy platform at Finsbury Park tube station. It was a Saturday afternoon, and there were people everywhere. But nobody saw what happened to Ben and he hasn’t been seen since.
Max, vulnerable and haunted by his past, lives in the ground floor flat at 64 Clarke Street. Dash lives in the flat above. Dash’s job, teetering just on the wrong side of the law, is about to get him into a whole lot of trouble. Max and Dash, strangers to each other though they live so close, have no idea that their lives are destined to collide. They will also each be given a second chance to decide what kind of person they truly are, and to discover whether it’s possible to rewrite the script while half-way through living it. And little do they know that Ben’s ultimate safety rests on the decisions they will make.
64 CLARKE is an unconventional thriller about innocence put to the test. Andrew Holmes weaves a gripping, affecting and – as ever – sharply funny tale.
"Witty, exciting and frequently brutal, this novel is at least as good as Martin Amis at his best" - Tom Boncza-Tomaszewski, The Independent
"He bombards the reader with fresh, funny observations in a style both wry and poignant. He has grasped that hip young writers' grail - becoming the "British Elmore Leonard" - by imitating not Leonard but PG Wodehouse writing a particularly fine episode of Eastenders." - Jeremy Jehu, Daily Telegraph
"This novel is fast paced, full of suspense and has flashes of black humour- as you would expect from a critically acclaimed author. A brilliant, dark read that will keep you up all night turning pages." - Natasha Harding, The Sun
"This character, Chick, is worthy of Martin Amis at his scatalogical best. The ingenuity with which the author interweaves their respective stories with that of the Snape family is considerable and his charaterisations and descriptions of the grimy reality of 21st century urban life are admirably deft. The ending is wholly satisfying: a morality tale without moralising." - Christina Koning, The Times
"Having first come to prominence with SLEB and ALL FUR COAT, Andrew Holmes has developed quite the reputation as a witty one line merchant. But with the release of 64 CLARKE, he has really announced his arrival as one of the best young British novelists around today . . Evoking the grubby desperation of trying to live on your wits in London in a way not done since Martin Amis' astonishing LONDON FIELDS, 64 CLARKE manages to be unsettling and wry at the same time…. One of the best urban novels in the last few years. Holmes has really announced himself as someone to watch." - Irish Independent
"Andrew Holmes's 64 CLARKE is both dark and hilarious; he has muscled in masterfully to the turf formerly occupied by Martin Amis" - Tibor Fischer, Sunday Telegraph
"Full of dry humour and precise observation... the end offers an unexpected and highly disturbing twist... bleak, funny, moving." - Times Literary Supplement
"Andrew Holmes' first two novels were fantastically entertaining, but 64 CLARKE is something else. This is the novel that will make his name, a cross between Ian McEwan's A CHILD IN TIME and Elmore Leonard. It takes every parent's biggest nightmare as a starting point and uses it for a thriller that will terrify and delight in equal measures." - Matt Thorne
"A black comedy worthy of Elmore Leonard" - Toronto Sun
"Holmes... is an excellent writer with an acute eye, plenty of compassion, and splendidly dry humour... This is a classy piece of fiction" - Natasha Cooper, Crime Time
"There are times, reading 64 CLARKE, when you think, "if Martin Amis was less concerned with style and more interested in fashioning a story -- like he was circa London Fields -- he would write like this. 64 CLARKE is a corker." - Bookmunch
"Holmes has a gift for dissecting the lives of small crooks with big dreams and bigger problems." - Scotland on Sunday
"Holmes showcases a genius for the sort of venomous one-liners mere mortals can only dream of." - The Mirror
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