The Corpse in the Garden of Perfect Brightness

(Paperback)

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The perfect quirky nostalgic crime read a tale of steam trains, giant squid, missing screenplays, missing mothers and a quest for the truth, from the inimitable Malcolm Pryce Its the winter of 1948. The four great railway companies have just been nationalised and Jack Wenlock the last of a fabled cadre of railway detectives is thrown out onto the street. Penniless, with new bride Jenny to support, and hiding from a murderous organisation called Room 42, Jacks prospects look bleak. But then a letter arrives from a mysterious Cornish Countess revealing that Jacks mother long believed to be dead may have survived a shipwreck off the coast of Java. Seizing the opportunity to track down his only remaining family member, Jack and Jenny board a boat heading East. The trail takes them to a run-down Siamese hotel where a motley assortment of drifters has washed up. Here a spy, an assassin, a deserter, an old soldier and a fading Hollywood movie star all await the arrival of a missing part for a flying boat and a journey that will take them into the realm of myth. But if Jack is ever to see his mother again, he has to stop them

Reviews

An absolute riot Imagine a Boys Own adventure rewritten by Joseph Conrad. A surreal, bizarrely moving delight -- John Williams * Mail on Sunday *
A welcome return by the author of the quirky, poignant and utterly unique Aberystwyth noir series ... Its sheer pulp and all Ripping Yarns like in the good old days of adventure writing, but led with joyful irony. Absolutely delightful * Crime Time *
A magnificently detailed, surreal, eccentric, complex and fascinating mix of history, absurdity, irony, gumshoe novel, an oddly touching love story and savage political condemnation a pulp fiction Boys Own adventure that mixes shades of both PG Wodehouse and Joseph Conrad into the most entertaining of Ripping Yarns This clever, funny and insightful one-off book is quite brilliant * Crime Review *

Author Bio

Malcolm Pryce was born in the UK and has spent much of his life working and travelling abroad. He has been a BMW assemblyline worker, a hotel washer-up, a deck hand on a yacht sailing the South Seas, an advertising copywriter and the worlds worst aluminium salesman. He is the author of the bestselling Aberystwyth novels. He lives in Oxford. @exogamist malcolmpryce.com