Tim Lott

Frankie Blue, inglese, trent'anni, rampante agente immobiliare con la passione del "fregare i clienti", incontra Veronica, la donna dei suoi sogni. In una crisi di coscienza o in un "accesso di maturita" decide di compiere il grande passo, abbandonare la vita da adolescente e da scapolo e di convolare a giuste nozze. Le cose non sono pero cosi semplici e il nostro, tentando di conciliare il suo nuovo stato e il gruppo dei pari - fanatici di football, donne e sbronze - si ritrova nelle sabbie mobili di un "fandango" esistenziale. L'amore alla fine trionfera, ma non senza fare qualche vittima.

A captivating 1970s-set novel that is both a coming-of-age and an End-of-an-Age story: about love, the lure of idealism, innocence and decadence. Adam is seventeen, the only son of straitlaced, cautious Ray and Evie.Life is slow, unbearably routine, in their low-rise council block in the London suburbs, until tragedy strikes, leaving Adam unhinged with grief. Rejecting any consolation at home, Adam is sent to spend the long hot 1970s summer with Ray's unlikely brother, the enigmatic Dr Henry Templeton - guru and spiritual teacher. With few possessions and even fewer ambitions for his future, Adam arrives at his uncle's houseboat in the West Country. Henry is charismatic, unfamiliar, full of eccentric ideas and projects. As the summer unspools, Adam meets first Strawberry, an ethereal American girl living in a shack in the woods; and then Ashley, whose father, the local vicar, is locked in conflict with Henry and his circle's 'alternative' way of life. While Adam falls under the spell of pretty, knowing Ashley, Henry, set on pursuing his personal vision unbendingly, seals the shocking fate of Strawberry, Adam and ultimately himself.

Dr Alex Seymour seems to have it all - with a solid marriage of twenty years, two teenage children, a new baby and an unblemished career as a London GP, his life seems perfect - but then a simple trip to the local supermarket changes things irrevocably. As he witnesses a shoplifter foiled by a combination of the owner's beady eye and the surveillance camera under the counter, Alex Seymour starts thinking about the reality and the fragility of his own seemingly perfect domestic situation, and what he does not see. With a son he suspects is stealing, a daughter whose first boyfriend may be going too far, and a wife he thinks is being unfaithful, Alex needs something to help him find out the truth and put him back in control. Enter Sherry Thomas, the mysterious Managing Director of Cyclops, and the catalyst for Alex Seymour's descent into a world ruled by cameras, tapes, lies and deceit, with devastating consequences. A gripping novel of suspense that mirrors modern preoccupations with surveillance, tabloid voyeurism and morality and gives us Sex, Lies and Video Tape in fiction form for the 21st century.

Tragic and hilarious in equal measure, Tim Lotts story of Charlie and Maureen Bucks ailing marriage and their climb up (and down) the social ladder during the 1980s is a wonderfully honest portrait of ordinary people living through an extraordinary time. Steeped in the decades cataclysmic events, packed with the crimes and misdemeanours we visit on each another, Rumours of a Hurricane is a powerful tale of change, how we face it and how we dont.

Dr Alex Seymour seems to have it all - with a solid marriage of twenty years, two teenage children, a new baby and an unblemished career as a London GP, his life seems perfect - but then a simple trip to the local supermarket changes things irrevocably. As he witnesses a shoplifter foiled by a combination of the owner's beady eye and the surveillance camera under the counter, Alex Seymour starts thinking about the reality and the fragility of his own seemingly perfect domestic situation, and what he does not see. With a son, he suspects is stealing, a daughter whose first boyfriend may be going too far, and a wife he thinks is being unfaithful, Alex needs something to help him find out the truth and put him back in control. Enter Sherry Thomas, the mysterious Managing Director of Cyclops, a surveillance shop, and the catalyst for Alex Seymour's descent into a world ruled by cameras, tapes, lies and deceit, with devastating consequences. This is a gripping story of suspense that mirrors modern preoccupations with surveillance, tabloid voyeurism, and morality.

Emma Bovary is beautiful and bored, trapped in her marriage to a mediocre doctor and stifled by the banality of provincial life. An ardent reader of sentimental novels, she longs for passion and seeks escape in fantasies of high romance, in voracious spending and, eventually, in adultery. But even her affairs bring her disappointment and the consequences are devastating. Flaubert's erotically charged and psychologically acute portrayal of Emma Bovary caused a moral outcry on its publication in 1857. It was deemed so lifelike that many women claimed they were the model for his heroine; but Flaubert insisted: 'Madame Bovary, c'est moi'.

Tragic and hilarious in equal measure, Tim Lott's story of Charlie and Maureen Buck's ailing marriage and their climb up (and down) the social ladder during the 1980s is a wonderfully honest portrait of ordinary people living through an extraordinary time. Steeped in the decade's cataclysmic events, packed with the crimes and misdemeanours we visit on each another, Rumours of a Hurricane is a powerful tale of change, how we face it - and how we don't.

Tim Lott uncovers a family history of depression which is also, in a fascinating way, a history of the changing attitudes to depression and mental illness in Britain 'A remarkable memoir ... To read it is to be spellbound as by a gripping novel' Ruth Rendell

The brilliant new novel from the author of The Last Summer of the Water StriderA sharp and very funny portrait of a brash era which is also a surprisingly tender take on flawed masculinity. Sarah Hughes, i paperWhat a terrific novel - wickedly sharp, wildly entertaining - I was gripped from start to finish. With its twisty plots and interwoven characters it paints a vivid portrait of a crucial decade. It's laugh-out-loud funny, too. And with property porn thrown in, what's not to like Deborah Moggach

El doctor Alex Seymour es un médico londinense al que empiezan a desbordarle algunos problemas: tensiones con sus dos hijos adolescentes, dudas sobre la fidelidad de su esposa Samantha, intentos de extorsión por parte de su despechada secretaria... Aconsejado por Sherry, la atractiva dueña de una tienda de artículos de vigilancia, instala cámaras ocultas, primero en su propia casa y, más adelante, en su consulta. Lo que no puede prever es que alguien lo acabaría asesinando, en macabras y extrañas circunstancias. Cuando su cuerpo aparezca, la viuda no podrá impedir que los diarios sensacionalistas, con escabrosos fragmentos de las cintas, aireen un suceso que contiene todos los ingredientes del morbo: sexo, violencia, voyeurismo... Samantha Seymour contrata entonces a un escritor, de nombre Tim Lott, para que investigue de manera independiente y dé una versión cabal de lo sucedido.

Como todos, Frankie Blue, un londinense de clase baja, siempre ha deseado caer bien, sentirse querido y reconocido. Ya en la escuela aprendió que para ajustarse a las expectativas ajenas –y, de paso, triunfar en la vida: estamos a finales de la thatcherista década de los noventa– convenía tratar la verdad con el respeto que merecía, es decir, ninguno. Así se ha ganado su apodo: Frank el Trola. Pero al llegar a los treinta, convertido en agente inmobiliario, empieza a cuestionarse si sus mentiras sirven para algo más que para forrarse. A esa edad conserva los mismos amigos de la infancia, aunque cada uno de ellos ha seguido un curso distinto en la vida: Tony es un peluquero narcisista; Colin, un colgado de los ordenadores; y Nodge, que quería recorrer el mundo, ha acabado como taxista. Pero aquello que los mantenía unidos, una combinación de cerveza, machismo cínico, fútbol, nostalgia y bromas, empieza a desintegrarse. La irrupción de Veronica, una patóloga de la que Frankie se enamora, desatará la crisis. Quizás, esta vez, esté en juego algo más que un ligue o ascender otro peldaño en la clasista sociedad británica.Con el telón de fondo de una sociedad cegada por el brillo del dinero fácil y de las apariencias, la historia de Frankie aborda –con el ánimo crítico de un ajuste de cuentas, pero también con la empatía de quien, en última instancia, comprende a los demás– los temores masculinos, el miedo a crecer y la dificultad de dejar atrás una adolescencia que parece perpetuarse.

It is late summer 2008 and forty-year-old Salinger Nash, who has been plagued since adolescence by a mercurial depression, leaves the north-west London house he shares with girlfriend for his older brother Carson's home in New Orleans. It is Carson who has persuaded Salinger that they should visit their estranged father on his deathbed in Las Cruces, and use it as an opportunity to heal old wounds. However it is with a sense of foreboding that Salinger sets off with his brother on a road trip from New Orleans in Carson's prized brand new Lexus, as their relationship is far from amicable. Tender, funny, unflinching, this is a road trip story in the great American literary tradition and an exploration of sibling rivalry that harks back to Cain and Abel. It is a vivid glimpse of a country through the eyes of an outsider, a profound exploration of brotherhood and a gripping journey of the soul.

Vientos de huracán, novela del escritor británico Tim Lott que ahora presentamos a nuestros lectores, es un extraordinario fresco que retrata el hundimiento económico, histórico y, sobre todo, moral de la clase media inglesa entre la guerra de las Malvinas de 1982 y la primera guerra del Golfo, en 1991. La novela, una autentica revelacion en su pais, consagro a Tim Lott como uno de los valores en alza de la literatura inglesa contemporanea. Londres, 1991. Charlie Buck, un borracho callejero y sin domicilio, es arrollado por un camion; encima, solo lleva una cartilla de la seguridad social, un reloj digital y un viejo recorte de periodico que contiene la necrologica de Mantovani, el rey de la musica ambiental. Tiempo atras, Charlie tenia esposa e hijo, un trabajo y una casa... ¿Que pudo conducirle a un destino tan desolador? El motivo de su ruina se remonta a finales de los años setenta, cuando, de la mano de la tecnologia, un nuevo modelo de sociedad asomaba en el horizonte; eran los años en que Margaret Thatcher alcanzo el poder y el sueño de poseer una casa confortable parecia al alcance de todos. Pero Charlie, que era tipografo en un periodico, pronto vio amenazado su puesto de trabajo con la llegada de los ordenadores, y ante la pasividad de su familia, el protagonista descubria que una tormenta social y economica comenzaba a zarandear su existencia

«Fue el 13 de septiembre, trece días después de mi decimotercer cumpleaños, cuando aprendí a hacerme invisible». Strato Nyman no podría ser más peculiar. Es el único chico negro enHedgecombe-upon-D