The House of Rumour
On sale
5th July 2012
Price: £8.99
Larry Zagorski spins wild tales of fantasy worlds for pulp magazines. But as the Second World War hangs in the balance, the lines between imagination and reality are starting to blur. In London, spymasters enlist occultists in the war of propaganda. In Southern California, a charismatic rocket scientist summons dark forces and an SF writer founds a new religion. In Munich, Nazis consult astrologists as they plot peace with the West and dominion over the East. And a conspiracy is born that will ripple through the decades to come. The truth, it seems, is stranger than anything Larry could invent. But when he looks back on the 20th century, the past is as uncertain as the future. Just where does truth end and illusion begin? THE HOUSE OF RUMOUR is a novel of soaring ambition, a mind-expanding journey through the ideas that have put man on the moon yet brought us to the brink of self-destruction. What will you believe?
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Reviews
A conspiracy thriller filled with bewildering connections, dark conjecture and arcane information, The House of Rumour perhaps most resembles The Da Vinci Code, rewritten by an author with the gifts of characterisation, wit and literacy. It may be the ideal holiday read for those who like to take their brains with them on vacation.
Extraordinarily imaginative
The world of intelligence, the world of creativity, the world of the occult - all these dance round each other flirtatiously . . . Arnott is not just a cynical games player fascinated by the possibilities of structure and thought experiments. He has the capacity to make us care about humanity . . . Whatever he touches on feels right, whether he has made it up or looked it up; this is a supremely intelligent book as well as a surprisingly warm one.
I loved this book . . . Once the connections start to engage, it snaps into sharp focus and the structure of the whole comes plain . . . The artistry of it is stunning