Dead Air

A couple of ice cubes, first, then the apple that really started it all. A loft apartment in London's East End; cool but doomed, demolition and redevelopment slated for the following week. Ken Nott, devoutly contrarian leftish shock-jock attending a mid-week wedding lunch, starts dropping stuff off the roof towards the deserted car park a hundred feet below. Other guests join in and soon half the contents of the flat are following the fruit towards the pitted tarmac . . . just as mobiles start to ring, and the apartment's remaining TV is turned on, because apparently a plane has just crashed into the World Trade Centre . . . Iain Banks' daring new novel starts with a bang and then accelerates through one man's political obsessions, manic media manipulations and wildly dangerous private life, speeding through a London of pubs, clubs and geezers of extreme dodginess to a twinned climax of nail-shredding intensity. A novel about politics, trust, paranoia and - perhaps - redemption, Dead Air is Iain Banks at his coruscating best. Iain Banks' Daring New Novel Opens In A Loft Apartment In The East End, In A Former Factory Due To Be Knocked Down In A Few Days. Ken Nott Is A Devoutly Contrarian Vaguely Left Wing Radio Shock-jock Living In London. After A Wedding Breakfast People Start Dropping Fruits From A Balcony On To A Deserted Carpark Ten Storeys Below, Then They Start Dropping Other Things; An Old Tv That Doesn't Work, A Blown Loudspeaker, Beanbags, Other Unwanted Furniture...then They Get Carried Away And Start Dropping Things That Are Still Working, While Wrecking The Rest Of The Apartment. But Mobile Phones Start Ringing And They're Told To Turn On A Tv, Because A Plane Has Just Crashed Into The World Trade Centre... At Ease With The Volatility Of Modernity, Iain Banks Is Also Our Most Accomplished Literary Writer Of Narrative-driven Adventure Stories That Never Ignore The Injustices And Moral Conundrums Of The Real World. His New Novel, Displays His Trademark Dark Wit, Buoyancy And Momentum.