Eureka

Freya Wyley #2

by Anthony Quinn

Summer, 1967. As London shimmers in a heat haze and swoons to the sound of Sergeant Pepper, a mystery film – Eureka – is being shot by German wunderkind Reiner Werther Kloss. The screenwriter, Nat Fane, would do anything for a hit but can’t see straight for all the acid he’s dropping. Fledgling actress Billie Cantrip is hoping for her big break but can’t find a way out of her troubled relationship with an older man. And journalist Freya Wyley wants to know why so much of what Kloss touches turns to ash in his wake. Meanwhile, the parallel drama of Nat’s screenplay starts unfurling its own deep secrets.

Sexy, funny, nasty, Eureka probes the dark side of creativity, the elusiveness of art and the torment of love.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Audiobook, Novels, Historical, Contemporary, British Literature

400 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2017

About the author

Anthony Quinn was born in Liverpool in 1964. Since 1998 he has been the film critic of the Independent. His debut novel The Rescue Man won the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award. His second novel Half of the Human Race was released in spring 2011.

Reviews

[Nigeyb · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the last book in Anthony Quinn’s loose 20th century trilogy: (1) ’Curtain Call', (2) 'Freya' and (3) 'Eureka'. I have recently read and enjoyed both 'Curtain Call' and 'Freya' so was very excited to press straight on with this, the third and final part (so far).

I rated both 'Curtain Call' and 'Freya' five stars and yet, if anything, 'Eureka' is my favourite of the three books.

Although each of the three books stands alone, and can be read without reference to the other two, I strongly recommend anyone considering reading all three to work their way through sequentially.

'Eureka' takes place primarily in London during the Summer of 1967 and, like the previous two novels, has a superb sense of time and place. Antonioni’s swinging London film 'Blow-Up' has just come out and The Beatles are poised to release Sergeant Pepper. German auteur Reiner Werther Kloss is in town to make a film called 'Eureka' based on a Henry James novel.

Nat Fane’s film screenplay for ‘Eureka’ is interspersed into the main narrative. This is a wonderful narrative device and a great way of telling two stories in one. The main plot is pacy: a compelling page-turner that very entertainingly captures the spirit of the times complete with bohemians, drugs, booze, gangsters, 60s fashion, kinky sex, and violence.

If you are interested in the late 1960s then you should love 'Freya'.

5/5

[Murray Ewing · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set at the height of swinging-60s London, Eureka follows the lives of a gaggle of characters involved in the making of a film (also called Eureka) based on Henry James’s story about the quest for artistic meaning, The Figure in the Carpet. We have screenwriter Nat Fane, struggling to finish the script that will support his trendy, expensive, swinging-London lifestyle; up-and-coming actress Billie Cantrip whose first big break causes tensions with her failing-artist boyfriend; journalist Freya Wyley, whose attempts to get an interview with German film-director Reiner Werther Kloss lead to her uncovering a dark strand to the wunderkind’s character; and a host of others designed to conjure the spirit of the times, including a Michael Caine-like working-class film-star, and a gangster-cum-film financier who brings in the seedier side of 60s London.

It’s an enjoyable enough read, but I can’t help thinking the book’s leaning so heavily on James’s paean to artistic inscrutability is an attempt to buy the book more depth than it has. Any ambiguity in the film the characters are making is down to the messiness of their personal lives and the contingencies of the film-making process (where nobody really knows what sort of film they’re trying to make), than any psychological depth in the originating artist (as it was in James’s story).

Early on, two characters go to see Antonioni’s Blow-up, which feels like a clue that this is the sort of film Quinn wants his Eureka to be like. Blow-up is about an artistically-successful but superficial photographer being confronted with a violent event that challenges him to question, for the first time, everything about what he’s doing. In Quinn’s novel, screenwriter Nat Fane has a similar brush with violence, but it in no way opens any depths of character. I suspect that, beyond his penchant for spanking, he doesn’t have any.

(The gangster involvement in the film also makes me think of another piece of 60s cinema, Performance — now there’s artistic ambiguity.)

Eureka’s a fun read that does all the right things to conjure the era it’s set in — it mentions the right brand names, makes of car and restaurants, it describes the fashions and has people discuss the Beatles. But I think any promise that it might be about something deeper is overselling it somewhat — something that could be said about a lot of the swinging-60s itself, too, I suppose.

[Veronica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having literally finished Freya the day before, I was really pleased to be given this for Christmas. I've enjoyed the first couple of volumes in this series -- easy reading, entertaining characters, excellent period atmosphere. This one carries on from not long after Freya left off: London in 1967. Freya's now a secondary character, with the main protagonist being her friend Nat, now a screenwriter on a film being made by a German wunderkind. He's a much more sympathetic character here than he was in the previous novels; still with a penchant for spanking, but he shows more evidence of kindness to his friends. Freya has mellowed too, she's less shouty, thank goodness (although shouting at a mean East London gangster is evidence of bad judgment). Of the new characters I really liked young actress Billie -- if he continues this series I'd like to see more of her -- and Sonja was an interesting character too.

That said, I think it was my least favourite of the three. He still excels at character studies and relationships, but they are less intense and involving here. The intrigue is a bit weak, and the extracts from Nat's script make the film sound rather, well, boring. Nevertheless, Quinn's skill in making his characters grab you, and some violence and kinkiness, kept me turning the pages, and I read it in a few days. I'd like him to continue the series. 3.5 stars upgraded to four.

[Latkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a sort of sequel to Curtain Call and Freya, set in 1967, but it can be read independently of those two. I think it's Anthony Quinn's best so far, as we follow Freya's old friend Nat Fane, a flamboyant, egotistical and yet strangely likeable screenwriter with a penchant for sadomasochism, as he attempts to write a film script based on Henry James's short story The Figure In The Carpet. He becomes friends with the German director, Reiner Werther Kloss, and helps young actress Billie to get a part. But the film is being funded by an East End gangster, which soon leads to trouble. Some other characters from the last two books, including Freya, appear again, and the whole narrative is interlaced with Nat's script, which strangely echoes events taking place in the rest of the novel. At its heart, this is a really fun and funny novel, involving the Beatles, hula hoops, acid trips, fire starting, kinky sex and the search for meaning in cinema, literature and life... with the suspicion that there might not actually be any! I really hope there will be another book in this brilliant series.

[BiblioPhil · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of those books which when reading it makes you feel witty, sophisticated, urbane and decadent. And then the illusion fades.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Screenwriter and failed actor Nat Fane is hoping that writing the screenplay for the film Eureka will rejuvenate his flagging career. The film is based on a Henry James short story, ‘The Figure in the Carpet’ in which an unnamed narrator meets his favourite author, Hugh Vereker, and becomes obsessed with finding a secret the author tells him runs through all his works, a secret no-one has yet discovered.

Nat is a larger-than-life character, a bon viveur with a taste for the finer things in life – being a member of the smartest clubs, driving a Rolls Royce and dressing in the latest fashions. When it comes to sex, Nat has a predilection for sado-masochism, resulting in him getting one of the best lines in the book. ‘He briefly wondered if his hostess would provide the necessary, and, deciding not to leave it to chance, packed two Venetian carnival masks and his riding crop.’ In addition, the poem Nat writes to celebrate his friend Freya’s birthday, inspired by the song ‘My Favourite Things’ from The Sound of Music, is both screamingly funny and very rude.

Those involved in the making of the film include avant-garde German director Reiner Werther Kloss, young actress Billie Cantrip (who Nat first came across in unusual circumstances), ageing actor Vere Summerville and Sonja Zertz, star of Riener’s most successful film. The book also features Nat’s friend, journalist Freya Wyley, the eponymous heroine of the author’s previous book. When Freya picks up the scent of a possible story, she embarks upon an investigation into potential murky goings on involving  the film’s shady financier, Harold Pulver, as well as the mystery of what happened to Reiner’s previous film which was never released and has disappeared without trace.

As well as telling the story of the making of the film, each chapter includes an excerpt from Nat’s screenplay featuring the fictional characters he has created based on James’s story. There are plenty of parallels between the film and the book if you care to look for them; a series of ‘figures in the carpet’, if you like. A recurring theme of the book is the meaning of art in all its forms, or more precisely whether it’s necessary for it to have a meaning at all. As one character remarks, ‘Sometimes it is less important to understand than to feel…’

The author conjures up the atmosphere of 1960s London which is swinging in more than one sense. The era of sexual freedom and experimentation is under way and hedonism is certainly alive and well amongst the characters in the book, especially Nat. Drink, drugs, and more drink are consumed with reckless abandon with the proverbial ‘night cap’ often resulting in something more intimate. The songs of The Beatles form a sort of soundtrack to the book so listening to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band would be the perfect accompaniment. Nat would probably recommend having a glass of champagne to hand as well… but only the finest vintage.

Eureka has been waiting patiently on my NetGalley shelf since 2017 – in fact, it was my oldest outstanding approval – and I’m so glad the NetGalley November reading challenge finally encouraged me to read it.  It’s a lot of fun and just a little bit naughty. It’s also made me want to read some of the other books Anthony Quinn has written, both before and since.

[Rupert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it

Engrossing, brilliant characters, gripping plot and WOW what a sense of the atmosphere and time

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for the 60s vibe and it’s there in spades: Beatles, pot, LSD, swinging London. But wasn’t enraptured with plot, characters etc.

[Jane Gregg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like Anthony Quinn's work, having read Freya recently (Freya herself pops up again here), and this groovy novel set in Swinging 60s London does not disappoint. The device of propping the whole work against Henry James' Figure in the Carpet is interesting and provides a certain existential framework to hang questions about the value and purpose of art - always good to consider. An air of Sergent Pepper's prevails and that is never a bad thing.

[lixy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Freya is the best of this trilogy, and there's not enough of her in this. Nat, the main character, is thinly written (in both books), unsympathetic, his BDSM tendencies and dandyish manner not quite believable, primarily there for (modern-day) shock value. The author was trying for a "Blowup" & 60s homage, and there was lots of near name-dropping, lots of costume description, a mediocre screenplay to wade through, anachronistic-sounding language and little psychological depth or interest.

[Artyom Yakovlev · Rating 5 out of 5]

The release of many modern films is often accompanied with a behind-the-scenes videos, many of which are of no particular interest because they show cast and crew delivering pre-rehearsed lines that say nothing about the real process. Anthony Quinn gives us his own text version of ‘behind the scenes’ — the film which is non-existent, the project which is at least partly fictional. Quinn’s main thought here is that art can’t exist independently from its creators’ life. The reality, perceived by the central character of the book, keeps reflected in his writings — sometimes directly, other times with slight differences and changes. It’s not only happenings that find their way to the final draft of the screenplay; it’s mutterings, phrases, character traits, little observations. The screenplay can be viewed as a sort of workshop, a ‘house of mirrors’ which chews over and digests life within the screenwriter’s mind. The result of this work bears hardly any resemblance to Henry James’s story which served as a starting point for the momentum built up by contributions of everyone involved and maintained by a common effort of the team. What is more interesting, though, is that these exchanges between fact and fiction are reciprocal; together with fictionalized life we can also witness the real-life embodiment of fiction. Vere, playing the character of Vereker from Nat’s script, repeats his fatal role outside the screen; the love-sex triangle thing reflects itself in Nat’s criminal encounter with Harry Pulver after his girlfriend has slept with Nat and Sonja behind Harry’s back; the girl that Nat fancies at the end of the story is Gwen’s namesake. All these closely intertwined twists and turns result in a complete blur of the life and the screenplay, which is an amazing way to illustrate the complex nature of creativity.
Not only does Quinn show rather objectively the backstage of the filmmaking process and all its aspects and problems — from the banal eccentricities of the director to criminal funding, corruption and lobbying of pet favourites and bullying. We actually see the process of writing the script and birth of the movie as it gradually changes Nat Fane. The evolution of his character may not be as important for the book as its description of the filmmaking process but the idea of how a person is evolving while working on a piece of art is nonetheless a crucial subplot of the novel — especially given the fact that Nat Fane appears in the previous book of Quinn’s trilogy, making these changes even more evident and striking. In ‘Freya’ we see Nat as a spoiled kid, as an embodiment of self-importance craze — a person who will do anything to make it to the world of fame and glamor, who cherishes and nurtures his public image. ‘Eureka’ allows us to realize to the full extent that the core of Nat‘s eccentric behavior has a different nature and rooted deeply in his self-doubt and self-criticism. His full-of-himself exterior is a cover-up for the humble and doubting interior; he is an individual who has grown a special protective shell to keep himself to himself, not willing to share his spiritual trauma with outsiders. He progresses from a famous-for-being-famous kind in ‘Freya’ to an intelligent thinker and reality observer in ‘Eureka.’ He can’t have reassessed his image — he must have been like that all the time — during his Oxford years, during the rise of his career, during his demise. Having changed the perspective from that of Freya’s to that of Nat’s, Quinn wants us to understand how easily one might fall for someone’s seeming brusqueness and impulsiveness while having no clue what this person’s real personality is like.
Almost every character in the book belongs to the art world or is affiliated with it in some way or other. Everyone has a secret to keep — Veer hides the fact that he is terminally ill, Billie conceals her love interests from her boyfriend, Reiner is reluctant to talk to the press about the legal dispute concerning his previous film, even Harry avoids talking about his criminal past and gets mad when someone notices his fake hair. All the characters hold back their raw emotions even physically, by wearing sunglasses — there are so many sunglasses features in the book that this tiny accessory even crouches its way into the climactic scene of the fictional film.Everybody is investigating everybody else, everybody is suspicious of everybody else, and this unending chain of secrets and curiosities feeds the flame of a huge mystery which not only transcends into Nat’s writing but also defines the pivotal idea of art. Similar to Antonioni’s ‘Blow Up,’ which Billie and her mother are watching at the beginning of the novel, ‘Eureka’ isn’t about revelations or messages, it’s about pure enjoyment of the atmosphere, the general effect of being clueless and liking this moment; the delight of being mystified and not getting any straightforward answers.

[Stephen Bacon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sex, drugs, cinema and stardom in a glorious technicolour romp through London's Swinging '60s.

Summer, 1967. As London shimmers in a heat haze and swoons to the sound of Sgt. Pepper, a mystery film - Eureka - is being shot by German wunderkind Reiner Werther Kloss. The screenwriter, Nat Fane, would do anything for a hit but can't see straight for all the acid he's dropping.

Fledgling actress Billie Cantrip is hoping for her big break but can't find a way out of her troubled relationship with an older man. And journalist Freya Wyley wants to know why so much of what Kloss touches turns to ash in his wake. Meanwhile, the parallel drama of Nat's screenplay starts unfurling its own deep secrets.

This is the first book I've read by Anthony Quinn but it won't be my last. He has such an easy, engaging style of writing. The characters are wonderfully realised and the backdrop of swinging London feels grounded. I always have a soft spot for characters who are writers and in Nate Fane we have a flawed but endearing scoundrel. Not all the story threads are tied up at the end, so I suspect that this world might be one that Quinn returns to in the future - at least I certainly hope so. I also know that Quinn's novels Curtain Call and Freya come together with Eureka to comprise a loose trilogy.

This is a very strange but enjoyable novel. It's at times funny, as well as being poignant and slightly kinky. As someone who wasn't around in the late 60s, it's difficult to know whether it depicts a realistic view of the London film industry at that time, but either way this is a book that's easy to recommend.

[Betsy Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A jolly romp through the swinging 60s. You can almost taste the champagne and hear the music in this book. I didn't think I was going to enjoy it initially (I was reading for a book club) but ended up really enjoying. There are so many characters with lots of twists and turns.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable read. Freya is a great character, in fact, lots of really good female characters here.

[Jo-anne Atkinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Summer 1967 and German director Reiner Werner Kloss is in London to shoot an updated version of a Henry James story. The production is financed by alleged gangster Harry Pulver, the lead actress is discovered after she tries to steal a wallet and screenwriter Nat has an interesting sexual peccadillo. This is the summer of Sergeant Pepper and amidst a whirl of sex and drugs and charges to society the film was never going to be a straightforward costume drama but as art and real-life collide the characters all change in one way or another.

Anthony Quinn is fast establishing himself as a stellar novelist. Yet again this book manages to be literary, emotive and entertaining and the twists of the plot echo those in the original Henry James novella. This is a supremely engaging book which offers much social commentary on society in the 1960s, and in that as well it echoes the writing of James. It would be too easy to think of this book as a story about a film being made in Swinging London, it is so much more.

[Duncan · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is the first Anthony Quinn book i have read. I've always wanted to read the others i just have never got round to it. what made this a different kettle of fish is that i love sixties pop culture, especially music TV and film. This is a stylish and evocative of the era. it refers to and brings to mind films like blow-up and Harold Pinter penned films starring Dirk Bogarde. my only criticism is that whilst stand-alone it definitely felt like i was following characters that already had a history. after checking my suspicion was confirmed that the Freya mentioned was the titular character of his previous book. guess i will definitely will have to get round to reading the others now. great stuff :)

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is the summer of 1967, and the sun is beating down on London, complete with the music of the Beatles and relationships being enjoyed to the full. This is the background of Quinn’s novel, overflowing with characters and in settings that are full of the sights, smalls and sounds of a time of change and challenge. Nat Fane, a screenwriter, had wanted to be an actor, but discovered the thing that made him stand out from the crowd, would fund a glorious lifestyle and kept him in touch with the celebrities of the age is writing the screen versions of novels and stories.This novel is about a film being made of a story by Henry James, and the challenge of making it relevant. As other people depend on Nat’s words, including young film maker Reiner Werther Kloss, a young actress in need of money and a start, an older actor scarred by experience and notoriety, and a host of others, Freya, an instinctive journalist collides with the project. Freya is a favourite character of Quinn’s, recurring over several of his novels, witnessing many things and wondering about more.

This is a book which manages to breathe a sense of the time over every page, as social history and living people seem to collide. The large cast of people in this vibrant novel are brilliantly depicted, as much of the interest circulates around making a film, the script of which is threaded through the novel. As the focus flips from Nat and his unusual tastes, Billie and her sad relationship and the dubious film backer and his doubtful motives, this is a novel which moves through London and briefly in the sunlight of a location. From a seedy studio, through expensive restaurants to the streets of Germany, this is a novel which succeeds in being visual yet full of the sounds of a new era.

The novel opens with the bored Nat getting frustrated about writing a screenplay for “The Figure in the Carpet”, a report of which leaves his name out, and an unexciting meal in an expensive restaurant. He meets Billie Cantrip, RADA graduate and a young woman who will surprise him with her singular sensitivity. As she returns to her disappointing flat where her older partner is being dissatisfied about everything, she thinks about the lyrics of the new recording “Penny Lane”, which relates so strongly to everyday life. As other characters are introduced, there are connections to Nat, Billie and the reporter Freya. The latter thinks that there is more to the surprisingly young director of the film than is first apparent; she decides to find out more about his carefully contrived image.

There are some surprising things about this book - it is detailed about certain activities, it refers to past hurts and present dangers, it suggests secrets and lies. Some of the characters are given a backstory which if it is revealed is episodic. It has great energy and yet runs along smoothly, revealing hints about each of the main characters in various settings.It offers a glimpse of another time, a mystery and characters who seem to be of their time. I found it a very enjoyable read, with multi-dimensional characters who interact with the others in a very realistic way. I recommend it to anyone who admires good characterisation and novels set in this time of enthusiasms and change.

[Siobhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eureka investigates an elusiveness about art whilst also being a Sixties caper. It follows the making of a new film by German director Reiner Werther Kloss: a very loose adaptation of a Henry James story being written by man-about-town screenwriter Nat Fane, a man who likes an exciting life more than getting work done. The film features fledgling actress Billie Cantrip, whose introduction to the world of cinema is not quite as she expected, with mystery, acid trips, fire, and many, many secrets featuring as the film ‘Eureka’ is slowly made. The bustle of art, music, and gangsters in London in 1967 forms the backdrop for the book, which somehow balances the fun and danger of the period with meditations about obsession, artistic creation, and the hunt for real meaning.

Quinn gives all of the main characters extensive backgrounds and moves between focuses on them to weave together a long story, though the narrative doesn’t take place over more than a summer. Intercut between the chapters are snippets of the screenplay for the film that Fane is writing within the narrative, revealing the secrets of the film as the tension in the story rises. This technique gives good freedom for Quinn to counterpoint ideas about art and love in one story with another, and also to break up one narrative with another. This means that the book doesn’t feel as long as it might, and it stays gripping throughout with enjoyable characters and some surprisingly intriguing strands of plot.

As is discovered in the film being made, art should not give all the answers, and Quinn does not, giving his ending enough ambiguity to follow through with this message about the questioning of meaning. Eureka is a literary caper that delves into obsession with art and refuses to give definite answers to many of its major questions.

[Jon Gordon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I borrowed 'Eureka' from the library, without any previous knowledge of the author or his writing. The plot seemed interesting though, redolent as it appeared of the best sort of Sixties glamour and intrigue. As it appeared, that is.

'Eureka' has a plot that can't really go wrong. The big flaw is in the prose designed to convey it, which came across as oddly flat and two - dimensional. I did finish the book although partly so I could properly get the measure as to why Mr Quinn had written as he did.

I had difficulty finding empathy with any of his large cast of characters, scenes lacked depth and scope, the sex was unconvincing, I found myself skipping over the film script excerpts and even an exploding yacht and an Italian film location had all the dramatic tension of an episode of Captain Pugwash.

When it got to the climactic scene where an actress is facially disfigured by a thuggish criminal who is then himself done away with, the whole thing just seemed contrived and needlessly sadistic. 'Eureka' would have benefited from a bit more humour, more insight into the lives of its characters, more about what really motivated these people. Maybe also a bit more convincing period detail.

Right at the end of 'Eureka' there is an obvious hint that Anthony Quinn (no, not the actor) is a significantly better writer than he chooses to let on in this book. I'm unaware of his other work although I get the idea that this is part of a trilogy or similar. Why am I writing this? Partly because people I know who experienced the 60s at first hand have spoken about how boring it really was then, nowhere to go, nothing to do, the food was rubbish and other complaints, compared to how we live today. All that may be true : there is however still such a thing as dramatic licence.

[David Lowther · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eureka is a brilliantly crazy novel which forms part of a (very) loose trilogy, following on from Curtain Call and Freya. Each can be comfortably read as 'stand alones.'

After the thirties (Curtain Call), the immediate post war period (Freya) Quinn now takes us to the sixties and, boy, do they swing! The setting is the shooting of an art house film adaptation of a Henry James short story. It's a script within a story novel and the entire screenplay is reproduced, bit by bit, in the book.

The characters are fascinating and, like the novel, very often funny. We meet journalists, actors, screen writers, directors, producers, gofers and London gangsters. There re several mysteries floating around, one contained in the screenplay and others in the real-life narrative.

Eureka is occasionally sad, frequently funny and always gripping. Everything is soon in this hugely entertaining tale including, as always, Quinn's highly readable, smooth prose. A must read.

David Lowther. Author of The Blue Pencil, Liberating Belsen, Two Families at War and The Summer of '39.

[Jeff Howells · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s the hot summer of 1967. London is swinging and the Beatles are about to release Sgt. Pepper. This is the setting of ‘Eureka’, the third in Anthony Quinn’s loose trilogy of novels set in 20th Century Britain - the previous ones being set in the 30s & 50s respectively.
This story concerns the making of a film and the people connected with it. The screenplay of the fictional film alternates with the story being told. The film itself is reminiscent of those sort of hip late 60s films such as Blow Up & Performance - and you can see elements of real people in Quinn’s characters (fictionalised versions of Michael Caine, Kenneth Tynan, Dirk Bogarde & Roman Polanski appear).
I really enjoyed this book, it’s setting clearly helped but there was also a frisson of kinkiness that was unexpected but welcome.
Bizarrely I’m now in the position of having to work my way backwards through the trilogy - this one certainly whetted my appetite for more.

[MetroBookChat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anthony Quinn’s growing series of period novels about London life is fast becoming one of contemporary fiction’s most dependable pleasures. Set in 1967, Eureka picks up from last year’s Freya, about an eponymous reporter battling male chauvinism to make her way. Now she’s bedding her lover’s sister and planning a profile of a German film director whose shady past involves dashed hopes of a career in football. But the main focus falls on Freya’s old friend, Nat, a dandyish screenwriter who won’t slow down his party-boy lifestyle at 40. As in previous novels, Quinn offers sexual intrigue and a classcrossing mystery plot straddling the glitzy and the grimy, all told with a rampantly infectious sense of fun.

[Marianne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved Curtain Call but found this novel far less engaging. Interspersing the narrative with the script as it develops is an interesting device. However I felt it made the novel rather disjointed. I didn't want to reflect on how the scriptwriter's experiences influenced the evolving script. I wanted more action! The plot thickened and gained pace towards the end of the novel- but slightly too late for me. Ultimately, I didn't care about the intrigue in the developing script; the mysterious element of the writer's oeuvre- the figure in the carpet. Perhaps if I had cared, the novel would have been more resonant with me.

[David Kelzman · Rating 3 out of 5]

An entertaining read.

Anthony Quinn takes us to a behind the scenes look at the personal lives of theatrical London.
Actors and actresses who appear to be a 'kinky' lot, not quite sure on which side they want to 'bat',
and I got some good laughs out of their stories because you never knew which way they were going to turn.

Not to be ranked alongside such winners as 'Half the Human Race' or 'Our Friends in Berlin' but nevertheless Anthony Quinn provides a different look at life - especially when he portrays the action as seen from a woman's point of view.

An enjoyable book. Full of entertaining experiences, but perhaps lacking in an 'end goal'

[Louise Muddle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly so forgettable I'm adding it late to the list and I struggle to remember much about it. Liked Curtain Call and The Rescue Man but found this too lightweight. Characters were from central casting, posh boy spanker, mysterious artsy German film director, 'cockerney' actress, gangster laundering his cash through film...it felt like the author had watched Darling, Alfie and Blow Up and other classic 60s London films and pastiched them into his book.
I liked Freya when glimpsed in Curtain Call and probably will go back and read the eponymous novel he wrote about her but wouldn't recommend this - read Vision of Loveliness by Louise Levene for a much better depiction of 60s seedy London.

[Steven Pilling · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a dense novel who sense of time and place is perfect .

The novel initially reminded me of London Blues by Anthony Frewin , but has a wider range and the occasional printing of the script during the book gives the reader an insight into the truth of the story you are reading.

What it didnt do for me is grip me , when i read it i enjoyed it but i never rushed to pick it up and resume , for others this wont be a problem and the writers ability to create people and write honestly will be for most people enough

[John Hardy · Rating 4 out of 5]

It isn't my usual thing, but I found myself enjoying it. It's very well written, and successfully evokes the era of the Swinging Sixties. Some characters continue from earlier books, which I have not read. There is quite a bit of heavy-duty sex, which is strangely untitillating. Some parts of the book are straight narrative, while others, in a different font, are in the style of a script - not sure what the purpose was, but it was harder to read. Overall I'd say this is not my favourite book, but nevertheless I might keep an eye out for the earlier ones.
Rating 3.9.

[Sandra · Rating 1 out of 5]

Having read and enjoyed The Rescue Man, I thought this book really disappointing. At present, I am having a struggle to finish it. The much vaunted period colour seems to me largely tacked on, most of the characters unappealing, and the tie-ins between the film script and the 'real life' narrative very laboured. I certainly don't want to return to any of these characters in his earlier novels. It takes such a long time to get going. I doubt I'll bother with this writer again.

[Ginni · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was good fun; nothing too serious, but a well written tale of goings on in 60s London, revolving round the world of film, writers and actors. I enjoyed the references to 60s culture, but I found the format, which alternates between the real life action, and the film script, rather confusing. This may also have been because I stopped reading for a week, while on holiday, and then had to pick up again. Would have said 3 stars, but for the standard of the writing, which was 4 star.

[Jill · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was okay is all I can say really. I was lent it by a friend who convinced me to read to the end. I suppose that raised my expectations, but... well. I got bored with it, found it uninteresting despite living through the sixties myself. I found no connection to the characters and didn't even like them very much (perhaps that shows some sort of characterisation). I also finished the book because that's what I do. I really didn't care how it panned out. Disappointing.