An Orwellian dystopia in the guise of a fast-paced
thriller, this is a coolly satirical novel laced with
humour, suspense and intrigue. Welcome to Brighton, a
city ruled by a combination of patronage and armed
force. The departments have kept their old names but now
Transport imposes order and exacts tolls; Welfare
processes the undesirables; Audit collects information
about everybody, and Parks and Libraries is supposed to
stop the flow of contraband. After years of civil
conflict, gated communities separate government workers
from the Scoomers cruising the streets in their battered
Fiats. But in a secure area four couples from the town's
elite keep up a tenuous version of middle class life.
They attend each others' dinner parties and drink and
gossip. Margaret and Alan think things are getting
better; Jack and Denise work long hours and hardly talk
to each other; Louise thinks Tim is plotting something,
while Siobhan cannot tell her friends the truth about
the husband they all think is harmless. Outside, beyond
their security gates, the rival Council militias keep an
uneasy truce while an underclass forages for survival or
waits eagerly for the end of the world. Meanwhile a
faction within the Council is planning to make the
changes that will give them absolute power. And then,
driving home from a party, Jack and Denise witness a
fatal car crash involving one of the Councillors. As the
inevitable by-election approaches, they and the people
they know are increasingly enmeshed in the town's
political manoeuvring and the violence of the streets
outside begins to touch even their lives. Through
conversations between the characters, leaked tapes of
official meetings, transcribed phone calls, fly posters
for prayer meetings, and provocative articles in an
illegal newspaper, this haunting vision of corruption
and surveillance in a city on the brink of chaos is at
once deeply unsettling and frighteningly familiar.
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