The Family Arsenal

<p><i>The Family Arsenal</i> is a darkly comic novel of warped morals and disillusionment in South London by the award-winning writer Paul Theroux.<br> <br> <b>In South London terrorists plot. . .</b><br> <br> Hood, a renegade American diplomat, envisions a new urban order in the opium for of his room. He flirts with terrorists, hoping to win their trust and respect. Mayo, his sometime bedmate, has just made a political statement - stealing a Flemish painting and negotiating publicity over this act with <i>The Times</i>. Murf the bomb-maker leaves his mark in red, scrawling 'Arsenal Rule' across half the city's walls, whilst his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, Brodie, bombs Euston and afterwards worries about her complexion.<br> <br> A novel of London lowlife and the dispossessed, and a powerful and violent thriller of disenchanted people.<br> <br> 'A pleasure. . . with Theroux the thrills are never cheap and obvious' <i>Guardian</i><br> <br> 'One of the most evocative, intelligently crafted suspense novels in years - like the early fiction of Graham Greene. . . London has rarely looked dingier or more sinister...an assured success' <i>The New York Times</i><br> <br> 'Brilliant and haunting. . . the ingenious of the plot, the London setting. . . the trapped and interwoven people, and the balefully witty observation, have an undistracted force' <i>Observer</i><br> <br> American travel writer Paul Theroux is known for the rich descriptions of people and places that is often streaked with his distinctive sense of irony; his novels and collected short stories, <i>My Other Life</i>, <i>The Collected Stories</i>, <i>My Secret History</i>, <i>The Lower River</i>, <i>The Stranger at the Palazzo d'Oro</i>, <i>A Dead Hand</i>, <i>Millroy the Magician</i>, <i>The Elephanta Suite</i>, <i>Saint Jack</i>, <i>The Consul's File</i>, <i>The Mosquito Coast</i>, and his works of non-fiction, including the iconic <i>The Great Railway Bazaar</i> are available from Penguin.</p>