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Out of Office: Synopsis

It's a long, hot summer and London's burning. Radical Islamists and the Far Right plot major terror attacks, race war threatens to break out at any moment, the economy is in meltdown, and a weak and divided government seems unable to cope. Meanwhile disgraced journalist Christian Hook finds his life spiralling into freefall: with his marriage disintegrating, Hook falls off the wagon and leaves work in goes search of something better.

 

When he meets a young revolutionary who allows him to enact his most sordid fantasies Hook finds himself repulsed and yet attracted to a dark underworld of violence, racism and terrorism. As Christian's life spirals out of control he's pulled further in, until he isn't sure he would stop even if he could...

 

What they said about "Out of Office"

"Mark Piggott is a talented and exciting writer; his novel is original, powerful and fast-moving, and takes the reader, all unprepared, into places he would probably have avoided had he been warned. But from page one it is too late; he is being hurtled along and he cannot get off."

- Paula McMaster, "Bookgroup.info"

*"Bookgroup.info" awarded "Out of Office" the prestigious title of "book of the month" - won in other months by writers such as Ali Smith, Sarah Hall, Cormac McCarthy and Hilary Mantel.

 

"This is a book that really makes you think about contemporary Britain and the difficult issues of race and class with which it is still grappling. It's also a book that resists easy answers and skewers political correctness. Mark Piggott wrote in The Independent that British `state of the nation' novels tended to fall under the radar, but he has written one here that deserves a wide audience."

- Andrew Blackman, author, "On the Holloway Road"

 

"Piggott's writing conjures evocative portraits of individuals lumbering between political correctness and more culturally ingrained biases. He possesses a way with metaphor and analogy which, when utilised sparingly and with a lightness of touch, rivals Martin Amis. He is expert at offering up succinct definitions of the quite complex web that multiculturalism, changing technologies and generational misunderstandings can weave around us."

- "Outside Left" magazine, issue 22

Out of Office is available from Legend Press, Amazon or most good bookshops.

 

NOW AVAILABLE ON KINDLE

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