‘Ingenious’ New York Times
‘Mesmerising’ The Times
‘Loveable’ Evening Standard
Nine-year-old Tooly is spirited away from Bangkok by a seductive group of outsiders who take her from city to city across the globe. At twenty, she is wandering the streets of Manhattan with a scribbled-on map, scamming strangers for her shadowy protector, Venn.
Now, aged thirty-one, she runs a second-hand bookshop on the Welsh borders and has found peace with her strange upbringing – until she’s called to return to New York to see her dying father.
Warm, hilarious and fizzing with intelligence, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers is a masterpiece about the search for identity.
‘Mesmerising’ The Times
‘Loveable’ Evening Standard
Nine-year-old Tooly is spirited away from Bangkok by a seductive group of outsiders who take her from city to city across the globe. At twenty, she is wandering the streets of Manhattan with a scribbled-on map, scamming strangers for her shadowy protector, Venn.
Now, aged thirty-one, she runs a second-hand bookshop on the Welsh borders and has found peace with her strange upbringing – until she’s called to return to New York to see her dying father.
Warm, hilarious and fizzing with intelligence, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers is a masterpiece about the search for identity.
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Reviews
One of the paciest, easiest to read novels you could imagine . . . Mesmerising: a thorough work-out for the head and heart that targets cognitive muscles you never knew you had
Some novels are such good company that you don't want them to end; Tom Rachman knows this, and has pulled off the feat of writing one . . . A touching story of fallen idols, with brilliant insights into misplaced loyalties, and the power that adults have over children. Rachman has written a hugely likeable, even loveable book about the people we meet and how they shape us
The way the three stories mesh is a wonderful thing - suspense and intrigue in equal measure. Every so often it reminded me of Donna Tartt
The detail is never overdone, the language is quirky and the novel's structure is beautifully managed
When a Tom Rachman novel lands in the bookstores I stop living and breathing to devour it. It's hard to think of anyone who has a better grasp on the world we live in (and I mean, like, the entire planet) and can write about it with such entertainment and panache
Ingenious . . . Rachman needs only a few well-drawn characters to fill a large canvas and an impressive swath of history