Search results for ""Author Oliver Harris""

'Mazy, pacy London noir' Ian RankinTen days after the station closed, he was informed he'd been officially suspended pending a hearing over allegations of gross misconduct. No details. A few hours after that, he got a call from a man who wouldn't give his name but told him he was under surveillance...They were bracing themselves for a shit-storm. Stay safe, the caller said, and hung up.Amber Knight is hot property - pop star, film star, front-page gossip.DC Nick Belsey is less celebrated. He can't shake his habit of getting into serious trouble and his career at Hampstead CID is coming to a dishonourable end. He is currently of no fixed address - squatting in a disused police station round the corner from Amber's swanky Primrose Hill mansion. But a knock on the door from a frantic and confused woman looking for her missing son is about to lead Belsey straight into the heart of Amber's glittering life. When a body is found and a twisted crime spree ensues, Belsey finds himself dangerously embroiled in a world of celebrity, obsession, glamour and desperation.Praise for The House of Fame'Harris has a terrific sense of place, hurtling between the wealthiest and most-run-down areas of London... The plot unfolds in a chilling and totally unexpected direction' Sunday Times 'A fast-paced thriller that is also nuanced and evocative...hats off to Harris, who has, once again, managed it with style and authority' Guardian'Gripping, and Oliver Harris is punchy and perceptive' The Times

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'Makes the capital as eerie as Le Carré's Berlin' Evening StandardMonday 10 June, end of a hot day. The city had started drinking at lunchtime and by 3 or 4pm crime seemed the only appropriate response to the beauty of the afternoon...At quarter to five he felt his contribution to law and order had been made. He parked off the high street, sunk two shots of pure grain vodka into iced Nicaraguan espresso and put his seat back. In an hour he'd be off duty, and in a couple more he'd be on a date with an art student he'd recently arrested for drugs possession. London is steaming under a summer of filthy heat and sudden storms - and Detective Nick Belsey, of Hampstead CID, is trying to stay out of trouble. But then somebody sets him a riddle. How does a man walk into a dead-end alley and never come out? And then reappear - to snatch a girl, to dump a body beneath a London skyscraper, to send Belsey a package of human hair. The answer lies underground, where the secrets degenerating beneath the city's sickly glitter are about to see the light of day.Praise for Deep Shelter'Relentless...explosive' Mail on Sunday'The coolest cop you'll have come across in ages. London through his eyes is as atmospheric as a drawing by Gustave Doré... This demands to be read before the television adaptation' Kate Saunders

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''Here''s a novel to make the great and the good quake.... Harris writes with compassion or satirical glee, depending on which his characters deserve, and this third Kane novel puts him firmly in the Mick Herron class'' Jake Kerridge, Daily Telegraph''Captivating and horrifying... Oliver Harris is squarely in the territory of the greats: Greene and le Carré but also the modern masters, Mick Herron and Adam Brookes. There can be no higher accolade'' Manda ScottHow does a secret service confront its past, when its secrets must never be revealed?Buried deep in MI6''s digital archives is the most classified directory of all. It doesn''t contain war plans or agent profiles, but shame: the misdeeds of politicians, royalty, business leaders and the service''s own personnel.There are seven decades'' worth of images and recordings, usually acquired for the sake of assessing risk, sometimes as a guard against betrayal,

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'Oliver Harris is an outstanding writer... he combines violence and romance, a sense of place and humour, in the same exciting way as, for example, Michael Connelly' The Times 'An intelligent, brilliantly plotted and paced thriller...If you need to feed your Mick Herron habit, Oliver Harris could be just the fix' Irish Times 'One of our finest thriller writers' Evening Standard'Oliver Harris is always pure quality' Ian RankinNick Belsey's on the run. Touching down in Mexico City, he doesn't have much in the way of funds, but he has a new continent and surely that's enough to start afresh. But it's not as easy as that. An idyllic interlude in a coastal village is interrupted when men turn up who seem to know exactly who he is. And they have some very urgent questions.DI Kirsty Craik had also hoped she'd left Nick Belsey behind her, in the wilder days of her career. When a five am call instructs her to track him down or she'll be dead by Christmas, it seems he's walked back into her life with characteristic commotion. Craik is forced to break the rules once more to find out what her former lover is up to.She needs to save herself, and, just maybe, to save Belsey too.Readers say'I've just read the whole series in 10 days..and just couldn't stop' five star reader review'The narrative pace refuses to blink and Belsey is never short of being the very best of company' five star reader review'I so enjoy this author's novels and have read all the backlist. This book did not disappoint. It is a fast-moving crime thriller featuring the irrepressible Nick Belsey and tough police detective Kirsty Craik' five star reader review

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'One of our finest thriller writers' Evening StandardA BBC2 BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICK 2021'Oliver Harris is always pure quality' Ian Rankin'A fascinating tale of modern espionage in a unique setting' Irish IndependentThree friends from a mission many years ago reconnect when one of them dies in mysterious circumstances on remote Ascension Island. Rory Bannatyne had been tasked with tapping a new transatlantic data cable, but a day before he was due to return home he is found hanged. When Kathryn Taylor, on the South Atlantic MI5 desk, begs ex-spy Elliot Kane to go over and investigate, he can't say no, but it's an uneasy reintroduction to the intelligence game.Entirely isolated from the world, the disappearance of a young girl on the island at the same time as Rory's death means local tensions are high. Elliot needs to discover what happened to her as well as to Rory. But the island contains more secrets than even the government knows, and it's not going to give them up without a fight. WHAT READERS ARE SAYING'Captivating...Gripping, relevant and frenetic. You'll be hard pressed to put this one down for a second' Amazon reader five star review'Stunning spy novel...This is the best of its genre I've read' Amazon reader five star review'A bit like a thinking person's Lee Child' Amazon reader five star review

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'Oliver Harris is always pure quality and I'm loving the hell out of his foray into the contemporary spy novel' Ian Rankin'Scary if true, or even half true' Sunday Times star pickThere is a dark side to MI6 that needs men like Elliot Kane - mercurial, inquisitive, free floating. He's spent fifteen years managing events overseas that never make the papers, deniable and deeply effective. Kane is a ghost in his own life, picking up and dropping personalities as each new cover story comes into play. But when a woman he loves, Joanna Lake, vanishes without a trace in Kazakhstan, he is forced centre stage. Drawn ever deeper into a realm of deception, Kane moves from merely infiltrating events to steering them. He's used to a new mode of hybrid psychological warfare - but snowbound Kazakhstan presents unique challenges. Poised between China, Russia and the West, dictatorship and democracy, state intelligence and an increasingly powerful world of private agencies, it's impossible to work out who is manipulating who. And Kane's not the only one trying to figure out where Joanna Lake has gone or what she learned before disappearing.Unable to trust anyone, hunted by his own colleagues, and with the life of someone he loves at stake, Kane needs to work out who is driving events, and why...Readers say:'Damn, Harris knows what he is talking about, and damn if he doesn't stream that knowledge hard and fast through a sniper's ricocheting trickshot of a plot' five star reader review'I love the geopolitical skullduggery, the contemporary Great Game ... and it does feel contemporary. It puts espionage solidly in the digital world without losing the essence - people on the ground' five star reader review'Up there with LeCarre in my view. I'll get everything he's written now' five star reader review

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'Anti-hero Nick Belsey, a policeman so maverick as to make Rebus look like a jobsworth, has burnt his bridges and fled to Mexico in Harris's latest marvellous thriller' Telegraph, 50 Best Books of 2022Praise for Oliver Harris:'One of our finest thriller writers' Evening Standard'Oliver Harris is always pure quality' Ian RankinNick Belsey's on the run. Touching down in Mexico City, he doesn't have much in the way of funds, but he has a new continent and surely that's enough to start afresh. But it's not as easy as that. An idyllic interlude in a coastal village is interrupted when men turn up who seem to know exactly who he is. And they have some very urgent questions.DI Kirsty Craik had also hoped she'd left Nick Belsey behind her, in the wilder days of her career. When a five am call instructs her to track him down or she'll be dead by Christmas, it seems he's walked back into her life with characteristic commotion. Craik is forced to break the rules once more to find out what her former lover is up to. She needs to save herself, and, just maybe, to save Belsey too.

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'A twisting spiral of lies and corruption' Val McDermidFrom the hilltop he could see London, stretched towards the hills of Kent and Surrey. The sky was beginning to pale at the edges. The city itself looked numb as a rough sleeper; Camden and then the West End, the Square Mile. His watch was missing. He searched his pockets, found a bloodstained serviette and a promotional leaflet for a spiritual retreat, but no keys, phone or police badge.Detective Nick Belsey needs help.Something happened last night - something with the boss's wife - and Belsey needs to get out of London, and away from the debt and the drink and the deceit.Collecting his belongings back at Hampstead CID on what should be the last day of his career, Belsey sees a missing person's report. But this one's different; this is on The Bishop's Avenue, one of the most expensive streets in the city. Belsey sees a chance for a new life.But someone else got there first.Praise for A Hollow Man'[Belsey has] got to be London's coolest cop... Harris has plundered London's underworld for his richly plotted and unusual detective series... It's heady stuff' Daily Mail'Thrills, spills and fine writing' Telegraph

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Ascension: the most remote island in the world . . . Elliot Kane, former spy, trying to leave the world of espionage behind. Kathryn Taylor: a stalled career in MI6, running the South Atlantic desk. Rory Bannatyne: covert technical specialist. Dead, apparently of suicide. Three friends from a mission many years ago reconnect when one of them dies on Ascension Island. Rory Bannatyne had been tasked with tapping a new transatlantic data cable, but a day before he was due to return home he is found hanged. When Kathryn Taylor begs Kane to go over and investigate, he can't say no, but it's an uneasy reintroduction to the intelligence game. Ascension is a curious legacy of England's imperial past. Only employees and their families are allowed to live there. It's home to several highly-classified government projects, a British and American military base, and forty dead volcanic cones. Entirely isolated from the world, the disappearance of a young girl at the same time as Rory's death means local tensions are high. Elliot needs to discover what happened to her as well as to Rory. But the island contains more secrets than even the government knows, and it's not going to give them up without a fight.

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The most ferociously political and prophetic book of the Cut-Up Trilogy, Nova Express fires the reader into a textual outer space to show us our burning planet and to reveal the operations of the Nova Mob in all their ugliness. As with The Soft Machine and The Ticket That Exploded, William Burroughs deploys his cut-up methods to make a visionary demand that we take back the world that has been stolen from us. Edited and introduced by renowned Burroughs scholar Oliver Harris, this new edition reveals how Nova Express was cut from an extraordinary wealth of typescripts to create startling new forms of poetic possibility.The third book of Burroughs' linguistically prophetic 'cut-up' trilogy - following The Soft Machine and The Ticket That Exploded - Nova Express is a hilarious and Swiftian parody of bureaucracy and the frailty of the human animal.

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A shocking exposé of the desperate subculture surrounding heroin addiction, William S. Burroughs' Junky is edited with an introduction by Oliver Harris in Penguin Modern Classics.Burroughs' first novel, a largely autobiographical account of the constant cycle of drug dependency, cures and relapses, remains the most unflinching, unsentimental account of addiction ever written. Through junk neighbourhoods in New York, New Orleans and Mexico City, through time spent kicking, time spent dealing and time rolling drunks for money, through junk sickness and a sanatorium, Junky is a field report (by a writer trained in anthropology at Harvard) from the American post-war drug underground. Nurtured into being by fellow Beat Generation guru Allen Ginsberg, Junky is a cult classic that has influenced generations of writers with its raw, sparse and unapologetic tone. This definitive edition painstakingly recreates the author's original text word for word.In work and in life, William S. Burroughs (1914-1997) expressed a constant subversion of the morality, politics and economics of modern America. To escape those conditions, and in particular his treatment as a homosexual and a drug-user, Burroughs left his homeland in 1950, and soon after began writing. By the time of his death he was widely recognised as one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the twentieth century. His numerous books include Naked Lunch, Junky, Queer, Nova Express, Interzone, The Wild Boys, The Ticket That Exploded and The Soft Machine. If you enjoyed Junky, you might like Burroughs' Exterminator!, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.'Reads today as fresh and unvarnished as it ever has'Will Self

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A terrifying, surreal space-age odyssey, The Soft Machine initiated Burroughs' Cut-Up Trilogy that includes Nova Express and The Ticket That Exploded. The book draws the reader into an unmappable textual space, where nothing is true and everything is permitted, to make a total assault on the colonising powers of planet earth that have turned us all into machines.Edited and introduced by renowned Burroughs scholar Oliver Harris, this new edition clarifies for the first time the extraordinary history of The Soft Machine's writing and rewriting, demolishing the myths of Burroughs' chance-based writing methods and demonstrating for a new generation the significance of his greatest experiment.

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Originally written in 1952 but not published till 1985, Queer is an enigma - both an unflinching autobiographical self-portrait and a coruscatingly political novel, Burroughs' only realist love story and a montage of comic-grotesque fantasies that paved the way for his masterpiece, Naked Lunch. Set in Mexico City during the early fifties, Queer follows William Lee's hopeless pursuit of desire from bar to bar in the American expatriate scene. As Lee breaks down, the trademark Burroughsian voice emerges; a maniacal mix of self-lacerating humor and the Ugly American at his ugliest. A haunting tale of possession and exorcism, Queer is also a novel with a history of secrets, as this new edition reveals.

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An outrageous hybrid of pulp science fiction, obscene experimental poetry, and manifesto for revolution, The Ticket That Exploded is a last chance antidote to the virus of lies spread by the ad men and con men of the Nova Mob, a call to arms against those driving our planet toward the point of destruction. Like the other two volumes of Burroughs' Cut-Up Trilogy, The Soft Machine and Nova Express, it is today as fresh in its form and as urgent in its message as it has ever been.Edited and introduced by renowned Burroughs scholar Oliver Harris, this new edition reveals how the book's cultural reach has expanded with the viral logic of Burroughs' multi-media creative methods.

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William Burroughs closed his classic debut novel, Junky, by saying he had determined to search out a drug he called 'Yage' which he believed transmitted telepathic powers, a drug that could be 'the final fix'. In The Yage Letters - a mix of travel writing, satire, psychedelia and epistolary novel - he journeys through South America, writing to his friend Allen Ginsberg about his experiments with the strange drug, using it to travel through time and space, to derange his senses - the perfect drug for the author of the wild decentred books that followed. Years later, Ginsberg writes back as he follows in Burroughs' footsteps, and the drug worse and more profound than he had imagined.

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