The Doll Princess

By: Tom Benn

Write A Review

Paperback | 15 January 2013 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback
304 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
20.0 x 14.6 x 2.0

Paperback

RRP $24.99

$23.75

or 4 interest-free payments of $5.94 with

Ships in 25 to 30 business days

The arrival of an assured and exhilarating new voice in literary crime fiction.

It's Manchester, July 1996, the month after the IRA bomb, and the Evening Newsis carrying reports of two murders. On the front page there's a photograph of a glamorous Egyptian woman, a socialite and heiress to an oil fortune, whose partially clothed body has been found in the basement of a block of flats. It would appear that she has been the subject of a sexual attack. In the back pages of the same paper there is a fifty-word piece on the murder of a young prostitute whose body has been found dumped on a roadside near the McVitie's factory.

For Bane -- fixer, loanshark and legman for one of Manchester's established ganglords -- it's the second piece of news that hits hardest. Determined to find out what happened to his childhood sweetheart, he searches through the tribes and estates of his bombed city for answers. It soon becomes clear that the two newspaper stories belong on the same page, and that Bane's world belongs to others -- those willing to profit from gun arsenals, human trafficking and a Manchester in decay.

The Doll Princess introduces the mesmeric narrator, Henry Bane, a conflicted man caught up in a mire of evil, and his creator, Tom Benn -- an assured and exhilarating new voice in literary crime fiction.

Industry Reviews

Tom Benn, Stockport born and bred, is that rare thing. A startlingly new, ridiculously stylish, home-grown voice. Despite more than a casual nod to a rain-sodden Hulme dialect, Benn's debut is so full of energy and sharp one-liners, it will travel far and wide -- Henry Sutton * Daily Mirror *
I've never wanted to listen to the soundtrack to a book so much. Another element that stands out in the madly bloody but sometimes brilliant book is how the characters speak. Accents are notoriously tricky on the page, but Benn captures the south Manchester patter impressively -- Rebecca Armstrong * Independent *
Tom Benn is set to be one of the distinctive crime writers of his generation. In Henry Bane he has created a sharp, sarcastic anti-hero with his own warped sense of honour and a narrative voice that is truly distinctive -- Adam Colclough * Shots *
A new name in the crime fiction section, is about to give us another hero of the genre -- Sarah Walters * Manchester Evening News *
A grisly thriller catches the feel and fear of Manchester on the slide -- Christopher Bray * World Magazine *

Shipping

	Standard Shipping	Express Shipping
Metro postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95
Regional postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95
Rural postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95

Orders over $89.00 qualify for free shipping.

How to return your order

At Booktopia, we offer hassle-free returns in accordance with our returns policy. If you wish to return an item, please get in touch with Booktopia Customer Care.

Additional postage charges may be applicable.