Acts of the Assassins
  • Published: 19 March 2015
  • ISBN: 9781448191369
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 352

Acts of the Assassins

Formats & editions
EBook
19 Mar 2015
Paperback
15 Mar 2016
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A charismatic cult leader is dead. One by one his followers are being assassinated. Sawn in half, beheaded, skinned alive. Enter Gallio.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE

A charismatic cult leader is dead. One by one his followers are being assassinated. Enter Gallio.

Gallio does counter-insurgency. But the theft of a body he’s supposed to be guarding ruins his career. Years later, the file is reopened when a second body appears. Gallio is called back by headquarters and ordered to track down everyone involved the first time round. The only problem is they keep dying, in ever more grotesque and violent ways. How can Gallio stay ahead of the game when the game keeps changing?
  • Published: 19 March 2015
  • ISBN: 9781448191369
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 352
Categories:

About the author

Richard Beard

Richard Beard is the author of Acts of the Assassins which was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize and most recently, The Day That Went Missing. In the twenty years since his first book he has published critically acclaimed novels and narrative non-fiction, including Becoming Drusilla, the story of how a friendship between two men was changed by a gender transition. He was formerly director of the National Academy of Writing in London, and is now a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo and has a Creative Writing Fellowship at the University of East Anglia. He is an optimistic opening batsman for the Authors Cricket Club.

Also by Richard Beard

Sad Little Men
How to Beat the Australians
The Day That Went Missing
Lazarus Is Dead
Becoming Drusilla
Dry Bones
Damascus
See all

Praise for Acts of the Assassins

The Acts of the Assassins is…spectacularly successful. It is thoughtful and clever and brutal and true… It is a Chinese puzzle box of a novel. A garden of forking paths. A page-turner. A modern classic

Benjamin Judge, Book Munch

Extraordinarily funny...confident and enchanting

Guardian

It is a darkly funny, virtuoso performance… so cleverly done it almost winks at the reader

Phil Baker, Sunday Times

Controversial, thought-provoking, funny and challenging, Acts of the Assassin is a delightfully fantastic and utterly compelling tale

Declan Burke, Sunday Business Post

One of the strangest and most interesting novels written this century… Brave and gripping novel

Catholic Herald

An uproariously funny read

Susan Dowell, Tablet

This novel takes a circular saw to received ideas about belief, fate, will, and storytelling. It’s also very funny

Jon McGregor

Brilliantly original and absurdly compelling ... it’s a book you’ll read in one, frantic gasp

Guardian

Richard Beard is one of those rare writers whose novels are at once radically inventive and brilliantly entertaining. Acts of the Assassins … is as joyously original as it is a page-turner to read

Tom Holland, Daily Mail

Richard Beard is one of those rare writers whose novels are at once radically inventive and brilliantly entertaining

Tom Holland, Daily Mail

One of this year’s most gripping and unusual thrillers

Mariella Frostrup, Observer

A superior literary crime novel, and a highly unorthodox historical novel...Endlessly entertaining

Sam Leith, AskMen UK

[Richard Beard has] slicded New Testament history with Le Carre-style espionage

Stuart Kelly, Scotand on Sunday

Intriguing novel

Claire Looby, Irish Times
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