White City

Paperback Published on: 03/07/2025
Price: £12.99
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Synopsis

THE BEST CRIME NOVEL OF 2024 - THE TIMES
BEST CRIME BOOKS OF 2024 - SUNDAY TIMES
BOOKS OF THE MONTH - THE GUARDIAN
'I very much doubt I'll read a better crime novel this year' IAN RANKIN
'The best crime novel I've read this year' THE TIMES
'Quite breathtaking' DAILY MAIL
'Superb' THE GUARDIAN
'Dominic Nolan is a wonderful writer' CHRIS WHITAKER
'A truly excellent crime novel' MAIL ON SUNDAY

It's 1952, and London is victorious but broken, a city of war ruins and rationing, run by gangsters and black-market spivs.
An elaborate midnight heist, the biggest robbery in British history, sends newspapers into a frenzy. Politicians are furious, the police red-faced. They have suspicions but no leads. Hunches but no proof.

For two families, it is more than just a sensational headline, as their fathers fail to return home on the day of the robbery.

Young Addie Rowe, daughter of a missing Jamaican postman and drunk ex-club hostess mother, struggles to care for her little sister in a dilapidated Brixton rooming house.

Claire Martin, increasingly resentful of roads not taken, strives to make the rent and keep her teenage son Ray from falling under unsavoury influences in Notting Dale.

She finds herself caught between the interests of dangerous men who may know the truth behind her husband's disappearance: Dave Lander, whose reserved nature she finds difficult to reconcile with his reputation as a violent gang enforcer, and Teddy 'Mother' Nunn, a sociopathic, evangelising outlaw and top lieutenant in Billy Hill's underworld.

Drawn together through the years in the city's invisible web of crime and poverty, the fates of the broken families and violent men collide in 1958, as the West Indian community of Notting Hill's slums come under attack from thugs and Teddy Boys. For Addie, Claire, Dave and Mother, old scores will be settled and new dreams chased in the crucible of London's violent summer.

'Dominic Nolan is one hell of a writer' MARK BILLINGHAM
'Dominic Nolan is a brilliant and immersive writer, and this marvellous novel will play havoc with your emotions' LAURA SHEPHERD-ROBINSON
'Incredibly good... one of the most interesting, brilliant crime writers around' JANE CASEY
'What a triumph. What an absolutely magnificent achievement' A.J. FINN
'Mind-blowing...so much more than a crime novel. An amazing piece of work' SARAH PINBOROUGH
'An extraordinary piece of work' HARRIET TYCE
'This is one of the richest, most absorbing novels I've read all year' TOM BENN

Publisher information

  • Publisher: Headline Publishing Group
  • ISBN: 9781035416783
  • Number of pages: 464
  • Dimensions: 196 x 128 x 34 mm
  • Weight: 320g
  • Languages: English

Customer Reviews

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White City
Easily a book of the year
I've loved all of Nolan's work but this is the best to date.
Kate Simants
White City
Much to like here but not this author's best book for me. 3.5/5
1950s London, rationing, ruins and racial prejudice. Throw in quite a cast of gangsters minor and major, and you have the setting for White City by Domini... READ MORE
Nigel
White City
Gritty Historical London Crime Thriller
White City is a powerful novel set in 1950's London,specifically the sleazy Soho of that era and the bombsites and squalor of Notting Dale and Brixton. M... READ MORE
David Blendell
White City
A tour-de-force, combining strong characters with writing that excels.
Set in 1950’s London, a place of devastation, still lying in ruins after the bombings of the war. Families have been left homeless, loved ones have been l... READ MORE
Mary Picken
White City
Unflinching
White City is a tour de force; what a story. I’ve recently been reading biographies of Ruth Ellis and Bruce Reynolds the great train robber. Both were si... READ MORE
Anita Wallas
White City
Stunning
White City is set to be the crime novel of the year: an epic immersion into 1950s London’s gang violence, racial tension, riots and broken families, in t... READ MORE
Heather Critchlow
White City
Post-war depression
1952 and as the city of London welcomes a new Queen and tries to recover from the war, an audacious robbery takes place. David Lander, from a long-line of... READ MORE
Jo-anne Atkinson
White City
White City
This is undoubtedly a tour de force of a book, but I did not particularly enjoy reading it, maybe because there were no really likeable characters, and pos... READ MORE
HelenS
White City
Disappointing
Hadn't encountered this author before but saw the excellent reviews. Sadly, couldn't get away with the style or the characters at all and had to give up.
corixa