ADAM MACQUEEN has contributed to Private Eye since 1997. He wrote the bestselling history of the magazine which was published in 2011, and edited the recent sixtieth anniversary celebration compiling the best of its contents over the years. He has also been on the editorial team of Popbitch and The Big Issue. His books include The Prime Minister’s Ironing Board and The Lies of the Land: An Honest History of Political Deceit. The King of Sunlight, his biography of the soap manufacturer William Hesketh Lever, was named by The Economist as one of its books of the year. His first novel Beneath the Streets, in which he introduced the character of Tommy Wildeblood, was longlisted for the Polari Prize.
Praise for Beneath the Streets
‘After I finished writing A Very English Scandal, I took a solemn vow — that I would rather spit-roast my own offspring than read anything else about the Jeremy Thorpe Affair. Seldom have I gone back on my word with more pleasure. As boldly conceived as it is vividly realised, Beneath the Streets is a delight’
John Preston, The Critic
‘A gripping thriller, interwoven with a really important thread about the condition of being gay in the 1970s’
Harriett Gilbert, A Good Read, BBC Radio 4
‘Adam Macqueen’s gripping debut novel is based on a provocative counterfactual question... He depicts his grim milieu engagingly – the 70s have seldom seemed so grotty and threatening – and this very English scandal has wit and invention to spare’
The Observer
‘Really well done. The detail and the authenticity is all there: London as a really scary, edgy, ugly place. The atmosphere is brilliant... As a portrait of a world I thought it was really fantastic, and I also read it with my computer by my side because I was constantly looking up the real-life figures and I was constantly shocked and amazed by how much of this is true’
David Nicholls
‘What if Jeremy Thorpe had succeeded in murdering Norman Scott? That’s the gripping premise behind this smart story of corruption, murder and establishment cover-up’
iPaper, 40 best books of the year
‘Adam Macqueen’s excellent debut thriller takes us back to 1976, a time of very British scandals. Former rent boy Tom Wildeblood is a thoroughly likeable hero, and the seedy allure of the period is convincingly rendered, while the plot skilfully mixes fact with fiction’
Mail on Sunday
‘A wonderfully evocative walk on the wild side of 1970s London. Darkly comic and deeply moving. A breathtaking, heartbreaking thriller’
Jake Arnott
‘Ticks all the boxes for me. Gay history. Jeremy Thorpe. And a rent boy turned detective called Tommy Wildeblood. Fantastic’
Jonathan Harvey
‘A gripping and occasionally hilarious depiction of what, up to this year at least, must have been the craziest period of modern British politics. The twist, on literally the last page, is superb. While some 1970s scandals were played out beneath the streets, some were hiding in very plain sight’
Law Society Gazette
‘A thrilling read...incredibly powerful’
Nina Sosanya
‘A fucking fantastic read. A gripping what-if thriller, packed with vivid period detail and page-turning twists. To find myself actually making an appearance in the final chapter was just cream on the cake’
Tom Robinson
‘A page-turning mystery, skilfully plotted and filled with tension. Lifts the lid on 1970s subculture to spine-tingling effect’
Paul Burston
‘A thrilling and brilliantly imaginative novel. It takes you into the secret world of Soho in the 1970s. But then suddenly it opens another door into the hidden world of violence and corruption that still lies underneath the England we know today’
Adam Curtis
‘Stonkingly good’
Rose Collis
‘Wonderfully evocative…darkly funny…deliciously believable’
Scene Magazine