Author:Anthony Burgess
Michael Byrne is an Irish Don Juan - a composer, a charmer, a bigamist and a thug. He moves from country to country, from bed to bed, selling his talents and leaving a trail of children in his wake. His journey takes him from post-Great War London to the centre of Hitler's Third Reich and then he vanishes. His twin sons travel across the troubled face of Europe to pursue their father for one final apocalyptic reckoning.
A rumbustious memorial to one of the most unignorable literary presences of our time
—— Sunday TimesDazzling... A brilliant and surprising conclusion to the career of one of the most intelligent and tireless writers of the century
—— Philip Hensher , Mail on SundayA fine book
—— IndependentByrne is full of his characteristic wit, gusto and erudition
—— David Lodge , ObserverA complex dark comedy in fluently rhymed verse. Frequently hilarious and always engaging, this final book simultaneously satisfies the differing demands of prose fiction and narrative verse. Composed mostly in the same ottava rima that Byron used for "Don Juan," Byrne shows Burgess in command of his poetic medium. One might expect an author to experience new spiritual insight on his deathbed, but such a technical breakthrough is highly unusual
—— New York TimesA puzzle box of a novel as fascinating as the clockwork bees it contains.
—— Erin Morgenstern, author of The Night CircusWildly imaginative novel is enough to tie the brain in knots; it's a comedy, a thriller, a crazy fantasy ... Harkaway has created a wonderfully entertaining, unguessable kaleidoscope of a novel.
—— Kate Saunders , The TimesThis brilliant, boundless mad genius of a book runs on its own frenetic energy, and bursts with infinite wit, inventive ambition and damn fine storytelling. You finish reading it in gape-mouthed awe and breathless admiration, having experienced something very special indeed.
—— Matt Haig, author of The RadleysAnother fizzingly imaginative melodrama…A wildly, irrepressibly exuberant new-weird/ fantasy/ thriller /comedy.
—— Daily MailIt's an ambitious, crowded, restless caper, cleverly told and utterly immune to precis...[Makes] Don Quixote look sedentary ... a very timely novel about belatedness...Joe is in one sense a 21st-century everyman, indebted to a previous generation, disenfranchised by a conspiratorial state... Angelmaker turns out to be a solid work of modern fantasy fiction, coupling credit-crunch anxiety with an understandable nostalgia for the mythical days of "good, wholesome, old-fashioned British crime".
—— James Purdon , ObserverA story of technology and morality. It's a wonderfully strange, rich piece of work - extremely entertaining and exciting - and has a wonderfully comic aspect to it as well.
—— William Gibson , New York Times[a] dazzling story..a witty and wonderfully sprawling fantastical thriller.
—— Irish Times