Jonathan  Coe

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‘As funny as anything Coe has written’ The Times Literary Supplement

The Closed Circle

The Proof of My Innocence

Penguin Shop: 3 Clothbound Classics for £33

Wonderfully accomplished and darkly funny. The Proof of My Innocence is a murder mystery, a satire on Britain's ever right-ward drift, culminating in Liz Truss; and an inquiry into truth and perception. Jonathan Coe gets better and better

A brilliant, shrewd, satirical novel – gimlet-eyed, funny, very clever and a searchingly profound look at the state of this strange country of ours.

The premier satirist of great British crapness is on killer form in this gag-a-minute mystery - who but Coe would think to structure a book around the abysmal transport police mantra “See It. Say It. Sorted”?

A funny, smart and innovative exploration of contemporary British political dynamics

A wonderfully farcical and absurd book that puts into perspective the political chaos of post-Brexit Britain

Coe is on engaging form… satiric and entertaining brio

Full of energy... a madcap caper, a sideways memoir, a tricksy jeu d’esprit that is also a quiet defence of fiction in a post-truth age, and enormous fun to read

Deeply pleasurable, and a lot of fun. You emerge from it glowing

A new Jonathan Coe is always a treat . . . Coe is a master at exploring the pains of modern life

For many in the UK, the last fourteen years have felt like living in an irredeemably bad novel. How wonderful, then, to mark the changes with Jonathan Coe’s wise and playful reprise of the years in which we lost the plot - and maybe gained some gentleness in its unravelling

As for my own stocking, Jonathan Coe has a new novel out, which is always a cause for celebration… Santa has been informed

My comfort read: anything by Jonathan Coe

A novelist who gains in range and reputation with every book

Please, God … if there’s a next life, let me write as well as Jonathan Coe

Coe is among the handful of novelists who can tell us something about the temper of our times

I was delighted by Jonathan Coe’s The Proof of My Innocence. It’s clever and political – while also being very funny

Probably the best English novelist of his generation

Coe shows an understanding of this country that goes beyond what most cabinet ministers can muster . . . he is a master of satire but pokes fun subtly, without ever being cruel, biting or blatant . . . his light, funny writing makes you feel better

Fantastic, wickedly funny and gripping, I couldn’t put this down. Coe has written a beautifully crafted mystery that dovetails as a sharp, smart state of the nation novel

Light as a souffle and tremendously funny

Coe knows how to write a novel: it is well paced, he makes complex plots look easy, he has a way of marshalling a large cast of characters that never feels contrived, the prose is pleasant and not invasive, and he is — rare for a novelist — funny

Coe has the great gift of combining engaging human stories with a deeper structural pattern that gives the book its heft

Astute, enlightened … Both moving and funny. As we’d expect from Coe

A sustained feat of humour, suspense and polemic, full of twists and ironies

An insightful and moving story about how memories can or cannot be passed down through the generations

British novelists love to diagnose the state of the nation. Few do it better than Jonathan Coe, who writes with warmth and subversive glee about social change

Few contemporary writers can make a success of the state of the nation novel: Jonathan Coe is one of them

For all its irony, its tricksiness, its surface light-heartedness, The Proof of My Innocence is a novel earnestly using fiction as a way of telling the truth

Full of humour and warmth, this re-imagining of the cosy crime genre is irresistible

Post-university life doesn’t suit Phyl. Time passes slowly, living with her parents and working a zero-hours contract at Heathrow Airport, while her budding plans of becoming a writer are going nowhere. 
 
That is, until family friend Chris comes to stay. He’s been investigating a radical think tank, founded at Cambridge University in the 1980s, that’s been scheming to push the British government in an ever more extreme direction. When he follows this story to a conference in a rambling old hotel deep in the Cotswolds, events take a bizarre and sinister turn. Soon he is caught up in a world of cryptic clues, secret passages and, eventually, murder. 
 
In the end, despite the efforts of a suitably eccentric detective, it falls to Phyl herself – ably assisted by Chris’s outspoken adopted daughter Rashida - to look for answers to the fatal mystery. But will they lie in contemporary politics, or in a literary enigma that is almost forty years old?

'My comfort read: anything by Jonathan Coe' Bob Mortimer 
 
'Coe channels his anger and frustration at the direction his country has taken, as well as his abiding love for it, into prose of enduring beauty' Guardian 
 
--- 
 
Post-university life doesn’t suit Phyl. Time passes slowly living back home with her parents, working a zero-hour contract serving Japanese food to holidaymakers at Heathrow’s Terminal 5. As for her budding plans of becoming a writer, those are going nowhere. 
 
That is, until family friend Chris comes to stay. He’s been on the path to uncover a sinister think-tank, founded at Cambridge University in the 1980s, that’s been scheming to push the British government in a more extreme direction. One that’s finally poised to put their plans into action. 
 
But speaking truth to power can be dangerous - and power will stop at nothing to stay on top. 
 
As Britain finds itself under the leadership of a new Prime Minister whose tenure will only last for seven weeks, Chris pursues his story to a conference being held deep in the Cotswolds, where events take a sinister turn and a murder enquiry is soon in progress. But will the solution to the mystery lie in contemporary politics, or in a literary enigma that is almost forty years old? 
 
Darting between decades and genres, THE PROOF OF MY INNOCENCE is a wickedly funny and razor-sharp new novel from one of Britain’s most beloved novelists, showing how the key to understanding the present can often be found in the murkiest corners of the past. 
 
--- 
 
'A new Jonathan Coe is always a treat . . . Coe is a master at exploring the pains of modern life' Rosamund Urwin, The Times 
 
'Please, God … if there’s a next life, let me write as well as Jonathan Coe' Anthony Bourdain 
 
'Probably the best English novelist of his generation' Nick Hornby 
 
'Deeply pleasurable, and a lot of fun. You emerge from it glowing' iPaper

Jonathan Coe was born in Birmingham in 1961. He is the award-winning, bestselling author of 14 novels, which include The Accidental Woman, What a Carve Up!, The House of Sleep, The Rotters’ Club, The Rain Before It Falls, Expo 58, Middle England, Mr Wilder and Me and Bournville. He has won the Costa Novel Award, the Prix du Livre Européen, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the Prix Médicis Étranger and the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize, among many others. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His work has been translated into 22 languages. Suspended Moment, an album of his musical compositions recorded live in Italy, was released on the British Progressive Jazz label in 2023. Jonathan Coe lives in London.

The Proof of My Innocence

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Wonderfully accomplished and darkly funny. The Proof of My Innocence is a murder mystery, a satire on Britain's ever right-ward drift, culminating in Liz Truss; and an inquiry into truth and perception. Jonathan Coe gets better and better

A brilliant, shrewd, satirical novel – gimlet-eyed, funny, very clever and a searchingly profound look at the state of this strange country of ours.

The premier satirist of great British crapness is on killer form in this gag-a-minute mystery - who but Coe would think to structure a book around the abysmal transport police mantra “See It. Say It. Sorted”?

A funny, smart and innovative exploration of contemporary British political dynamics

A wonderfully farcical and absurd book that puts into perspective the political chaos of post-Brexit Britain

Coe is on engaging form… satiric and entertaining brio

Full of energy... a madcap caper, a sideways memoir, a tricksy jeu d’esprit that is also a quiet defence of fiction in a post-truth age, and enormous fun to read

Deeply pleasurable, and a lot of fun. You emerge from it glowing

A new Jonathan Coe is always a treat . . . Coe is a master at exploring the pains of modern life

Endlessly satisfying

About Jonathan Coe

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