The Noise of Strangers by Robert Dickinson

Welcome to Brighton, a city ruled by a combination of patronage and armed force. After years of civil conflict, gated communities separate government workers from the Scoomers cruising the streets in their battered Fiats. But in a secure area four couples from the town’s elite keep up a tenuous version of middle class life. They attend each others’ dinner parties and drink and gossip. And then, driving home from a party, Jack and Denise witness a fatal car crash involving one of the Councillors. As the inevitable by-election approaches, they and the people they know are increasingly enmeshed in the town’s political manoeuvring and the violence of the streets outside begins to touch even their lives. "I recommend it to those who like complex fiction, who enjoy the demands of reading material that makes them think, and those who have a dry sense of humour - at the heart of this bleak, dark and all-too-believable novel of a near future we should fear to live in, is a joke so mordant and black, and so beautifully constructed and clever, that it will make you laugh out loud." - Kay Sexton Paperback: 272 pages Publisher: Myriad Editions (3 Mar. 2010) Language: English ISBN: 978-0-956251-51-0 Size: 129mm x 198mm