Oscar Rickett

Manhattan Murder Mystery

City on Fire

By

Jonathan Cape 912pp £18.99 order from our bookshop

The literary epic remains the talk of the literary town. If the popularity of Karl Ove Knausgaard and Elena Ferrante has somehow passed you by, then here comes the American Garth Risk Hallberg, with his 900-plus-page City on Fire, which brings together an assortment of disparate but interconnected characters set against the burning, decaying, enlivening backdrop of 1970s New York. 

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • Why did the 'bold and determined' Empress Matilda never manage to become Queen regnant? Peter Marshall reviews a n… ,
    • From the Archive: Martyn Bedford on Ian McEwan's 'Atonement' ,
    • In 'Silenced Voices' reports the ongoing story of the human rights lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has been… ,
    • The mystery of Jack the Ripper's identity has long been agonised over. But what do we know about his victims?… ,
    • A piece of Literary Review history from way back in 1983: John Haffenden talks to the great Iris Murdoch. ,
    • Britain’s only travelling lit fest, the Garden Museum Literary Festival is heading to Houghton Hall, Norfolk, for a… ,
    • 'The 19th-century German sage is not my idea of a pleasant travel companion' goes hiking with Friedr… ,
    Follow Us