The Long Firm

by Jake Arnott

Hardcover, 1999

Status

Available

Call number

PR6051.R6235 L66 1999

Publication

Soho Press (1999), 343 pages

Description

London. The 1960s. The capital is swinging, but underneath the boomtown there's a dark underbelly. Meet Harry Starks: club owner, racketeer, porn king, sociology graduate and keen Judy Garland fan. Harry's business is fronting violence with rough charm and cheap glamour; putting the frighteners on, performing menace while trying to desperately trying to jump the counter into legitimacy. Five characters tell five tales that combine in an extraordinary narrative that is both an explosively paced thriller and brilliantly imagined sociological and topographical portrait of sixties London.

User reviews

LibraryThing member lightparade

Arnott's star faded somewhat after an entire print run of a novel had to be pulped (libel, they say), but his first was a very effective evocation of life in the Krays' London.

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LibraryThing member LisaMorr

I started out not liking this book, then gave it a chance, and now I think I liked it. The book is made up of 5 chapters, all written in the first person. The people depicted in the chapters are all interconnected in that they all interact with Harry Starks, a Jewish homosexual gangster in sixties

London. The book generally moves forward in time, with some characters appearing in more than one chapter. I was kind of turned off by some explicit sex in the beginning of the book, which I wasn't expecting. But as I continued to read it, I became more and more interested in what was going to happen to Harry Starks next. I would read something else by this author.

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LibraryThing member mikedraper

Things were really swinging in England in the '60s. This story narrates various character's interactions with gay night club owner, Harry Starks.

The story opens when a young man named Terry meets Harry. Terry narrates how Harry was assertive and generous and asked him to move in with him as his

lover.

After Terry became less content with this relationship, Harry set him up to run an eletronics firm. One day, Harry removed a number of TVs without paying for them. When Terry began to ask about this, he's informed of 'the long firm' where gangsters set up a scheme by getting the name of a deceased person, obtainint the necessary documents, open a business and put some money into an account to make it seem legit. Then order inventory, delaying to make payments. After it is set up, withdraw the money, have a fire sale and disappear. Since the firm is registered to a deceased man, the gang gets away with their scheme.

Terry learns the hard way that Harry is not one to be taken advantage of. When Terry attempts to skim some of the money from one of Harry's schemes, Harry turns sadistic.

The second narrator is a member of parliament who Harry cultivates and then uses him to further his cons. This turns international when they attempt to set up a rip off in Gambia.

The story is a light hearted romp through the British mob scene. Harry is a paradox. He's generous but can be dangerous when crossed; most of the time he's in good spirits but if someone tries to take advantage of him, he can be deadly as a poisonous snake.

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LibraryThing member jayne_charles

What a great book this was. Intelligently written without compromising on entertainment, it focuses on a London gangster from the viewpoints of five of his acquaintances. All in all it's an action-packed whirl through the seedier side of the swinging sixties, a world of rent-boys, strippers, bent

coppers and seriously dangerous Maltesers. And every fifty pages or so someone gets tied to a chair.

My first thought on reading the title was to joke 'the long frirm what?', and judging by some of the subject matter I wasn't too far wide of the mark...

Nothing to do with the writing, but my copy had a superbly designed cover, and also featured a picture of the author looking exactly as though he's just spotted someone keying his car. Brilliant.

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LibraryThing member maneekuhi

"The Long Firm" is an excellent book; I was expecting "good", but not this good. 4.5 stars at least. It's about a London gangster of the 50's and 60's, during the time of the Krays, strip clubs, porn publications, protection rackets. A bit of drugs, LSD is new on the scene. The book is sprinkled

with some 60's stuff - LBJ is elected, Judy Garland is a drunk and at the end of her career, Johnny Ray can no longer pull a crowd. The protagonist, of sorts, is Harry Starks. Harry is admittedly "queer, but not gay". He is a pro at getting his hooks into people, and now they owe him favors, even an MP. But one of the really key features of the book is its structure. Told in 5 "chapters", each a short story of sorts, and each narrated from the POV of a different Harry associate. In the first episode we learn what a long firm is, i.e., a short-lived business where inventory doesn't get paid for, then there's a fire sale, then the owners are gone without a trace. Other segments key on a bad investment in Nigeria,a real life creep, Jack the Hat, ultimately rubbed out by a competing gang, the Kray twins, Harry goes to jail, and the final and perhaps most entertaining segment.....let's just say Harry gets out of jail. My only disappointment is that this book seems to be Arnott's best to date, and I don't know if there is another book of his I'll read next. But "The Long Firm" is highly recommended.

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LibraryThing member jkdavies

A brilliant book, ostensibly a portrait of the gangster/businessman Harry Stark, moving from sixties London to eighties Costa del Crime. His story is told from the viewpoints of five different associates through the years, each voice is convincing and different, and yet Harry Stark remains a blank

and unknown character you almost but not quite recognise. Of course, my copy has Mark Strong on it from the tv adaptation (which I haven't seen), so that colours my perception of Harry. Brooding, and mean when necessary.

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