Cocaine Nights (Paperback, New Ed)

Five people die in an unexplained housefire in the Spanish resort of Estrella de Mar, an exclusive enclave for the rich, retired British, centred around the thriving Club Nautico. The manager of the club, Frank Prentice, pleads guilty to charges of murder – yet not even the police believe him. When his brother Charles arrives to unravel the truth, he gradually discovers that behind the resort's civilised facade lurks a secret world of crime, drugs and illicit sex …

At once an engrossing mystery and an unnerving vision of a society coming to terms with a life of unlimited leisure, 'Cocaine Nights' is a stunningly original work of the imagination from one of this country's most acclaimed writers.

"Utterly compulsive. The sinister attractions of Estrella de Mar are masterfully evoked, and one is constantly being brought up short by the sheer strangeness of Ballard's imagination."
JOHN PRESTON, 'Sunday Telegraph'

"The arrival of a new Ballard novel has become a literary event. He is one of the few genuine surrealists this country has produced, the possessor of a terrifying and exhilarating imagination – and a national treasure."
NICHOLAS ROYLE, 'Guardian'

"There are those (I am among them) who would back Ballard as Britain's number one living novelist. This adds a glinting new facet to his achievement – Ballard, detective novelist extraordinary."
JOHN SUTHERLAND, 'Sunday Times'

"One of the few world class British writers alive today. This is Club Class Ballard. You really have to buy it."
DAVID PROFUMO, 'Literary Review'

"Snort up 'Cocaine Nights'. It's disorientating, deranging and knocks the work of other avant garde writers into a hatted cock."
WILL SELF,'Observer'