Author:Tom Sharpe
When Miss Hazelstone of Jacaranda Park kills her Zulu cook in a sensational crime passionel, the gallant members of the South African police force are soon on the scene: Kommandant van Heerden, whose secret longing for the heart of an English gentleman leads to the most memorable transplant operation yet recorded; Luitenant Verkramp of the Security Branch, ever active in the pursuit of Communist cells; Konstabel Els, with his propensity for shooting first and not thinking later - and also for forcing himself upon African women in a manner legally reserved for male members of their own race.
In the course of the strange events which follow, we encounter some very esoteric perversions when the Kommandant is held captive in Miss Hazelstone's remarkable rubber room; and some even more amazing perversions of justice when Miss Hazelstone's brother, the Bishop of Barotseland, is sentenced to be hanged on the ancient gallows in the local prison.
Not a 'political' novel in any previously imagined sense, Riotous Assembly provided a completely fresh approach to the South African scene - an approach startling in its deadpan savagery and yet also outrageously funny.
The funniest writer now working in the English language . . . His humour has bite and an angry underside that puts him in the great tradition of English satirists
—— Stephen KingRiotous Assembly is a masterpiece of black farce, and makes me suppose that there is a true comic genius here
—— Auberon Waugh , SpectatorSavagely hilarious
—— Sunday MirrorRiotous Assembly has done to the South African police what Catch-22 did to the American Air Force
—— Piers Brendon , Books & BookmenRiffling, rolling, reeling . . . Ellroy's best
—— The Denver PostRiveting . . . Impossible to put down . . . An author who breaks all the rules. He's a kamikaze pilot on a collision course with hell. The pen moves madly across the page . . . A book that is one long scream of rage and emptiness and longing
—— The News and ObserverThe most original crime writer of our time
—— SpectatorJames Ellroy is a genius: the finest American crime writer since Raymond Chandler, and one of the most readable experimental writers in the world
—— Times Literary SupplementWithout him and his crime fiction, there's no David Peace or The Sopranos or Ian Rankin or The Wire or the work of countless writers and film makers who saw a different way of doing things when they first cracked the spine on an Ellroy
—— GQPears brings to life a vibrant 17th-century world...a tour de force
—— Daily TelegraphCrammed with period detail, it's as much a novel of ideas as it is of character
—— Val McDermid , The Week
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