
The Monster's Lament
Robert Edric(Author)
Black Swan (Publisher)
Published on 27. February 2014
Book
Paperback/Softback
448 pages
978-0-552-77710-0 (ISBN)
Description
April 1945. While the Allied Forces administer the killing blow to Nazi Germany, at home London's teeming underworld of black marketeers, pimps, prostitutes, conmen and thieves prepare for the coming peace. But the man the newspapers call the English Monster, the self-procaimed Antichrist, Aleister Crowley, is making preparations for the future too: for his immortality.
For Crowley's plan to work, he has to depend upon one of London's Most Wanted, ambitious gangland boss Tommy Fowler, who, presiding over a crumbling empire, can still get you anything you want - for a price.
And what Crowley wants is a young man, Peter Tait, in Pentonville Prison under sentence of death for murder. Convinced of his innocence but unable to prove it, his only chance of survival lies in the hands of one detective struggling against the odds to win a desperate appeal that has little chance of success.
The Monster's Lament is an extraordinary journey through a ruined landscape towards an ending more terrible and all-consuming than any of its participants can have imagined. When you're used to fighting monsters abroad, it is easy to overlook the monsters closer to home...
For Crowley's plan to work, he has to depend upon one of London's Most Wanted, ambitious gangland boss Tommy Fowler, who, presiding over a crumbling empire, can still get you anything you want - for a price.
And what Crowley wants is a young man, Peter Tait, in Pentonville Prison under sentence of death for murder. Convinced of his innocence but unable to prove it, his only chance of survival lies in the hands of one detective struggling against the odds to win a desperate appeal that has little chance of success.
The Monster's Lament is an extraordinary journey through a ruined landscape towards an ending more terrible and all-consuming than any of its participants can have imagined. When you're used to fighting monsters abroad, it is easy to overlook the monsters closer to home...
Reviews / Votes
A wonderfully edgy piece of wartime noir -- D.J. Taylor * Independent * Macabre twists keep the pages turning -- James Urquhart * Financial Times * A masterly, highly evocative, multi-layered tale * Mail on Sunday (Eire) * Fabulously atmospheric * Bookseller * Edric's world, though often unsavoury, is also curiously compelling. Lured into its shady precincts, you're unlikely to want to leave. -- David Grylls * Sunday Times * A darkly disturbing novel * Hull Daily Mail * A connoisseur of shadows, Edric is excellent on what is truly "devilish" in human beings * The Sunday Times * Edric is a novelist who makes his own rules and can't be compared with anyone else. The world he has made in this unsettling novel is both familiar and deeply weird; there's a genuine sense of menace beneath the hysteria and superstition * The Times * Another brilliant offering from Edric * The Lady * An intriguing scenario which Edric develops with polish and intelligence, immersing himself in small-town Edwardian England * Daily Mail *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Transworld Publishers Ltd
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 127 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
305 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-552-77710-0 (9780552777100)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Robert Edric
The Monster's Lament
E-Book
03/2013
1st Edition
Transworld Digital
€8.99
Available for download
Person
Robert Edric was born in 1956. His novels include Winter Garden (1985 James Tait Black Prize winner), A New Ice Age (1986 runner-up for the 1986 Guardian Fiction Prize), The Book of the Heathen (shortlisted for the 2001 WH Smith Literary Award), Peacetime (longlisted for the Booker Prize 2002), Gathering the Water (longlisted for the Booker Prize 2006) and In Zodiac Light, which was shortlisted for the Dublin Impac Prize 2010. He lives in Yorkshire.