Cocaine Nights

Description

'Snort up "Cocaine Nights". It's disorientating, deranging and knocks the work of other avant-garde writers into a hatted cock' Will Self Five people die in an unexplained house fire in the Spanish resort of Estrella de Mar, an exclusive enclave for the rich, retired British, centred on the thriving Club Nautico. The club manager, Frank Prentice, pleads guilty to charges of murder - yet not even the police believe him. When his Charles arrives to unravel the truth, he gradually discovers that behind the resort's civilized facade flourishes a secret world of crime, drugs and illicit sex. At once an engrossing mystery and a novel of ideas, 'Cocaine Nights' is a stunningly original work, a vision of a society coming to terms with a life of almost unlimited leisure. This edition is part of a new commemorative series of Ballard's works, featuring introductions from a number of his admirers (including Neil Gaiman, Zadie Smith, John Lanchester and Martin Amis) and brand-new cover designs.

J.G. Ballard was born in 1930 in Shanghai, where his father was a businessman. After internment in a civilian prison camp, he and his family returned to England in 1946. His 1984 bestseller 'Empire of the Sun' won the Guardian Fiction Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It was later filmed by Steven Spielberg. His controversial novel 'Crash' has recently been made into an equally controversial film by David Cronenberg.

'The arrival of a new Ballard novel has become a literary event. He is one of the few genuine surrealists this country has produced, the possessor of a terrifying and exhilarating imagination -- and a national treasure.' Guardian 'Britain's number one living novelist. This adds a glinting new facet to his achievement -- Ballard, detective-novelist extraordinary.' Sunday Times 'One of the few world-class British writers alive today.' Literary Review 'As thrillingly wired as ever! dazzlingly original.' Independent 'Utterly compulsive.' Sunday Telegraph