Synopsis
Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2013
Shortlisted for the South Bank Sky Arts Awards 2014
Book of the Year in the Guardian, Spectator, Independent and Daily Mail.
Richard House's The Kills is an epic novel of crime and conspiracy, told across four volumes.
It starts with an explosion, a man on the run and the theft of over fifty million dollars. It moves from the Middle East to the Mediterranean, around mainland Europe via the sleazy underworld of Naples, and across America. It ends in a locked room.
Brilliantly original, playful and ambitious, The Kills is a terrifying, awe-inspiring, mind-blowing sensation.
Part of the Picador Collection, a series celebrating fifty years of Picador books and showcasing the best of modern literature.
‘A damn good book’ – The Sunday Times
‘A staggering achievement’ – Daily Mail
‘A thrilling, overwhelming ride’ – The Spectator
Details
Reviews
“One of the most epic novels I’ve read in a long time, and also the most original . . . reads like John le Carré and Roberto Bolaño got together to write a dark, intricate, messy, sometimes surreal spy thriller with elements of corporate espionage . . . House’s novel gets at the truth in a truly profound and unique way”Jeff VanderMeer, author of Annihilation
“They [the Man Booker 2013 judges] outdo themselves in choosing an astounding sequence by Richard House in The Kills . . . This is a thrilling, overwhelming ride . . . Astonishing for its scale and drive . . . I could not wait to get back to it when reading it, and House is probably this year’s major reinventor of the possibilities of the genre . . . one you ought to read”Philip Hensher, The Spectator
“A gigantic experiment, bracing, thrilling and worthy of a medal for narrative heroism, Richard House's four-volume The Kills plays an epic set of variations on the shadow war for loot and influence behind the chaos of Iraq”Boyd Tonkin, Books of the Year, Independent
“Richard House's Man Booker-longlisted novel stands out from the pile . . . an ambitious and complex meta-thriller that spins its many stories like plates, tantalising you at every turn . . . a page turner . . . and a book absolutely to be read twice over”The Independent, The Independent
