Shrines of Gaiety: The Sunday Times Bestseller, May 2023

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There is the perfect balance throughout of sweetness and heartbreak.And, as always, there is the unmistakable zest of Ms. Atkinson’s dry wit…Ms. Atkinson has perfected the comicwizardry that keeps us both airborne and immersed in her mosaic-like narratives.” A] glittering foray into London’s post-WWI Soho…Atkinson’s incisive prose and byzantine narrative elegantly excavate the deceit, depravity, and destruction of Nellie’s world. She also turns this rich historical into a sophisticated cat-and-mouse tale as the various actors try to move in on Nellie’s turf. Atkinson is writing at the top of her game.” Atkinson is a thoughtful writer with an astute understanding of 20th-century social history. This is the perfect novel for uncertain times, when comfort of a particularly English and nostalgic stripe is required. THE TIMES I warn you: this one takes a while to get going. Which is not such a surprise once you realize there are approximately 15 main characters. There's at least 5 plots, probably more like 8 or 10, which sounds unmanageable but it's surprisingly breezy. Reading it felt a lot like an extremely well plotted prestige tv series, where you spend the first two episodes planting a lot of seeds and learning who everyone is, then you get to just watch it go from there.

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson

I´ve loved all of Atkinson´s books: the Brodie series,the stand alones.She was always a delight to read:wit,clever plots, smart writing,so it saddens me to rate this one so low. I love Kate Atkinson. I have listened or read most of her books and she is a favorite. Yet of all her books this is my least favorite. I did get the audio from my library quite soon after its release and was anxious to enjoy it. So I started it right away and boy was it slow going. I never could engage with the characters or get really interested in the underlying mystery to be solved. Of course, the world in which Nellie Coker exists is a very dangerous one, there’s always someone wanting to take the very lucrative crown, and so it is, that Nellie’s empire comes under threat from various sources, including enemies at the gates and also within the walls! Maddox (promoted to inspector after the war), was in collision with Nellie Coker, He protected her from the law, but wasn’t sure what else he benefited from.

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One of TIME Magazine’s Must-Read Books of the Year•A Top Ten Washington Post Best Books of the Year • A Kirkus Best Book of the Year As with many Atkinson novels, there are small elements of magical realism which add to the colour and atmosphere but which don’t detract from the main story. Around the Coker empire, and its police ‘associates’, clients, and suppliers, is a broad cast of characters ranging from young girls seeking their fortune in London to Distressed Gentlewomen living in a boarding house. Atkinson on her finest form. A marvel of plate-spinning narrative knowhow, a peak performance of consummate control.' OBSERVER

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson | Goodreads

He had tried, God help him, to chat and prattle about the weather or horse-racing, even films, but he ended up sounding like a poor amateur actor”.There is a large cast of characters: Nellie and her six (largely adult) children; Frobisher and his dog; Gwendolen who is, I think, the star of the story; Freda and Florence, just two of the many who run away to London seeking fame and fortune; a couple of bent policemen; Frobisher's mentally fragile wife Lottie; a man with several identities intent on regaining his ill-gotten gains; a journalist; many 'Bright Young Things' (read idiots); and a number of bodies, mostly fished out of the Thames. Even the young paperboy in the opening chapter makes a cameo appearance at the end. Each of these characters is clearly depicted and memorable in their own right. There's no chance of confusing any character with any other. The novel grabs the reader from the outset. It paints a picture of the capital's glittering nightlife and its seedier underside so vivid, that it is almost possible to smell the stale cigarette smoke and taste the alcohol... the story of Nellie and her family, and the characters they associate with, builds to a satisfying ending as the strands of their lives are deftly woven together. INDEPENDENT Atkinson captures both the glamour and the seediness of this heady period with consummate skill in a book teeming with memorable characters. Gorgeously vivid, often strange and always very funny, it should cement her reputation as one of our finest novelists. Jake Kerridge, SUNDAY EXPRESS

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson - Penguin Books Australia Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson - Penguin Books Australia

Shrines of Gaiety is a witty romp of a novel that takes place in the dark underbelly of London during the Roaring 20s. The notorious queen of this glittering world is Nellie Coker, ruthless but also ambitious to advance her six children, including the enigmatic eldest, Niven, whose character has been forged in the crucible of the Somme. But success breeds enemies, and Nellie’s empire faces threats from without and within. For beneath the dazzle of Soho’s gaiety, there is a dark underbelly, a world in which it is all too easy to become lost.

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It was an eye-opener for Nellie. She couldn’t fail to notice that many of the men went home at the end of the night with a dance hostess who had been a complete stranger to them a handful of hours earlier. ‘The young ladies get very good tips for that,’ Jaeger said phlegmatically. ‘Can’t blame ’em, can you?’ Detective Chief Inspector John Frobisher of Scotland Yard has been trying to bring down Nellie Coker and also to find who’s been murdering the young girls whose bodies have been washing up in the river. So when Gwendolen – Miss Kelling – approaches him about the missing girls, he enlists her help in infiltrating the clubs with a view to solving both their cases. Combines the colour of a historical drama with the pace of a thriller and the detail of a police procedural... masterful. i NEWS Frobisher (lived in Ealing-but prefer the police station to his Ealing terrace), had a fixation on the Cokers, particularly Nellie.