Soft [Paperback]

At first glance, the thrillers of Rupert Thomson seem to have nothing in common except the expansiveness of his imagination and the lucid radiance of his writing. Air & Fire is about a group of French people sent to California at the end of the 19th century to build a church. The Insult is about a man blinded by a robber in a supermarket parking lot who discovers one night that--because of a bizarre experiment--he can see again. Thomson's latest finds three very different characters--an aimless waitress, a reluctant hit man, and an ambitious young marketing executive--linked by the sudden success of a new soft drink. But a closer look confirms the feeling that Soft continues the author's fascination with the way science can bend and shape the destinies of all sorts of nonscientific people. Certainly Glade Spencer, the flaky young woman who flies off periodically for unpleasant encounters with her American lawyer boyfriend, has no idea when she signs up for a sleep clinic to earn some extra cash that the soda slogans planted in her brain could cause her death. Barker Dodds, the nightclub bouncer from Plymouth, doesn't know why he's being paid to kill Glade. And James Lyle, the striving marketer who thought up the brainwashing scheme in the first place, is deliberately out of the loop about its consequences. All three are so perfectly drawn that you'd recognize them on the street, and the way Thomson describes their quirky, weirdly decorated flats and lifestyles captures the flickering pulse of London with uncanny accuracy. --Dick Adler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

‘An unsettlingly intelligent and controlled novel, complete with sharp social observation and some nightmarish violence’

'This exuberant, demonic novel, beautifully constructed in its writing, is as tightly constructed as a cat's cradle ... an undoubted triumph ... It sticks, appropriately, in the mind like a hook' Mail on Sunday 'Brilliant ... Thomson's achievement is to have put a thrillingly contemporary twist on the institutionalised corruption theme of so much popular fiction' Independent 'Thomson has the storyteller's knack of keeping you glued to the page ... Impressive and compulsive' Telegraph 'Tough, funny and scary ... Hypnotic and charming ... Painterly, he sets words against one another so their meanings seem to pool and bleed, making something new' Independent on Sunday

‘Thomson has the storyteller’s knack of keeping you glued to the page ... impressive and compulsive’

‘Tough, funny and scary ... hypnotic and charming...painterly, he sets words against one another so their meanings seem to pool and bleed, making something new’

‘The imagery makes you see the world afresh’

The objective of advertising is to change the behaviour of the consumer so they purchase more of the product. That, at any rate, is the theory. But Jimmy Lyle may have taken things a bit too far with his controversial strategy for the UK launch of Kwench! When the new orange soft-drink hits the streets, it triggers a series of events he could not have anticipated. Certainly he never dreamed it would plunge him into the twilight world of synchronised swimming. Nor did he think it would end in murder

Rupert Thomson is the author of seven novels. His books have been shortlisted for various awards including the Writer's Guild Fiction Prize for Air and Fire and the Guardian Prize for Fiction. He lives in Barcelona.