The American

A haunting psychological thriller, re-released to tie in to the major new film starring George Clooney

There are echoes of Nabokov in this in this tense and poetic mystery

Crisp yet lyrical, simple yet intelligent...haunting, shocking, and tense...Readers looking for thought-provoking literary fiction can't do any better than this

A psychological suspense thriller invested with life-and-death gravitas

With Farfalla, Booth has a created a rich, conflicted antihero whose clever rationalizations mask a soul weary with self-doubt

The lazy, languid setting is an eerily effective backdrop for the fresh and beguiling murder intrigue...With first-rate characters and a gradual buildup of suspense, Booth constructs a focused, tightly written novel

Booth's prose exhibits such a nicely pointed clarity that it would be all too easy to devour this beguiling story and to take for granted its artful construction, its sparkle, its vivid conjuring of character and landscape

Martin Booth, novelist, critic, biographer, children's author and social historian, died of a brain tumor in 2004. Shortly after diagnosis, he began to write his acclaimed memoir of his childhood in Hong Kong, Gweilo which he completed shortly before his death. Amongst his acclaimed novels were Hiroshima Joe, based on the life of a real down-and-out Briton who had survived the Nagasaki atomic raid, The Industry of Souls, which was short-listed for the Booker prize, and A Very Private Gentleman, which has now been filmed as The American, starring George Clooney.

The locals in the Italian village where he lives call him Signor Farfalla - Mr Butterfly. He is a discreet gentleman who spends his time studying rare butterflies. 
 
But Farfalla's real profession is deadly. He considers himself an artisan, not for the butterflies he paints but for the guns he creates for assassins. 
 
Farfalla has resolved to make his next job his last. Then, perhaps, he can settle down comfortably in the Italian village he has grown to love and enjoy the remainder of his life without constantly looking over his shoulder. 
 
But a treacherous circle is closing in on him...

Gweilo: Memories Of A Hong Kong Childhood

Evocative, funny and full of life - a beautifully written and observed childhood memoir of growing up in colonial Hong Kong shortly after World War 2.

A classic memoir... the voice of the youthful narrator carries the reader on in a wonderfully honest tone... Booth has delivered a pre-coming-of-age book that ranks with the best of the breed. The writing is superb... it is a more than worth legacy to his prolific literary life, but also stands as one of the most original and engaging memoirs of recent years, all the more telling because it is so personal, witty and true

Admirably evocative... one longs to learn what happened next; but, alas, we never will

It has such pace and power... his memoir is, above all, a celebration... the portrait of his parents... is particularly fine

Highly evocative... as a sharp-eyed, sensitive child of a vanished Hong Kong, Booth earns his nostalgia... his family are not the only ones who will enjoy the book

His finest work. Full of local colour and packed with incident

Booth must rank as a giant of modern English letters... Gweilo is alive with delight in the new... this sunny, luminous account of a very special time and place will have to serve as an epitaph... ensuring that he will remain forever young

Full of colour and anecdote, wit and originality, his tale of the young 'gweilo' (pale fellow) loose in an exotic motley of rickshaw coolies, street magicians, Triads, drunken expats and others is crafted with deftness and aplomb. My type of leisure reading - off-beat and polished

Martin Booth is internationally known as a writer and biographer. An acclaimed novelist, his The Industry of Souls was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1998. When he was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2002 he was inspired to delve into his Hong Kong childhood and write Gweilo. He died in February 2004, shortly after completing the manuscript

Martin Booth died in February 2004, shortly after finishing the book that would be his epitaph - this wonderfully remembered, beautifully told memoir of a childhood lived to the full in a far-flung outpost of the British Empire... 
 
An inquisitive seven-year-old, Martin Booth found himself with the whole of Hong Kong at his feet when his father was posted there in the early 1950s. Unrestricted by parental control and blessed with bright blond hair that signified good luck to the Chinese, he had free access to hidden corners of the colony normally closed to a Gweilo, a 'pale fellow' like him. Befriending rickshaw coolies and local stallholders, he learnt Cantonese, sampled delicacies such as boiled water beetles and one-hundred-year-old eggs, and participated in colourful festivals. He even entered the forbidden Kowloon Walled City, wandered into the secret lair of the Triads and visited an opium den. Along the way he encountered a colourful array of people, from the plink plonk man with his dancing monkey to Nagasaki Jim, a drunken child molester, and the Queen of Kowloon, the crazed tramp who may have been a member of the Romanov family. 
 
Shadowed by the unhappiness of his warring parents, a broad-minded mother who, like her son, was keen to embrace all things Chinese, and a bigoted father who was enraged by his family's interest in 'going native', Martin Booth's compelling memoir is a journey into Chinese culture and an extinct colonial way of life that glows with infectious curiosity and humour.

Cannabis: A History

An in-depth, insightful, accessible and entertaining study of the world's most controversial weed - and, after tobacco, alcohol and aspirin, the world's most widely taken drug.

Booth tells this story with admirable restraint...this book should be on the shelf of anyone interested in human freedoms and bad laws.

So good no one will need to do another for at least fifty years...mesmerizing detail, fantastical digressions, lots of jokes and wry asides.

A testament to the late Booth that he could make such a boring subject so interesting.

A colourful tale ... Chronicles the remarkable and often mystifying process through which cannabis became outlawed throughout the Western world, and the devastating effect such legislation has had on the global economy.

After two puffs on a marijuana cigarette, I was turned into a bat.

'Amazingly informative...fascinating stuff'

An internationally known and admired writer and biographer, Martin Booth was also an acclaimed novelist - his THE INDUSTRY OF SOULS having been shortlisted for the 1998 Booker Prize. His penultimate book was CANNABIS: A HISTORY, and he died in February 2004 shortly after completing GWEILO.

To some it's antisocial anathema, to others it is a harmless way to relax, or provides relief from crippling pain. Some fear it is a dangerous drug that leads to 'reefer madness' and addiction; to others still it is a legal anomaly and should be decriminalized. Whatever the viewpoint, and by whatever name it is known, cannabis - or marijuana, hashish, pot, dope, kif, weed, dagga, grass, ganja - incites debate at every level. 
 
In this definitive study, Martin Booth - author of the acclaimed OPIUM: A HISTORY - charts the history of cannabis from the Neolithic period to the present day. It is a fascinating, colourful tale of medical advance, religious enlightenment, political subterfuge and human rights; of law enforcement and customs officers, smugglers, street pushers, gang warfare, writers, artists, musicians, hippies and pot-heads. 
 
Booth chronicles the remarkable and often mystifying process through which cannabis, a relatively harmless substance, became outlawed throughout the Western world, and the devastating effect such legislation has had on the global economy. Above all, he demonstrates how the case for decriminalization remains one of the twenty-first century's hottest topics.

Soul Stealer

Soul Stealer is the second title in the trilogy about the alchemist's son. Doctor Illuminatus, the first book, has sold 15,000 copies in two months.

Martin Booth spent his childhood in Hong Kong and Kenya. He is well-known as an adult novelist, and has been shortlisted twice for the Booker award. He has two grown-up children and lives in Devon.

Evil has returned to Rawne Barton - this time in the form of a malevolent chemistry teacher, Yoland, whose aim is to gain power by stealing souls. Pip and Tim, newly started at secondary school, manage to get Sebastian, the alchemist's son, into their class so that he can uncover Yoland's evil plans. But Yoland has help - not only in the form of a stunted familiar who is also pretending to be a schoolboy, but from a mysterious supply teacher - who turns out to be Malodor, the evil alchemist from Doctor Illuminatus. A truly nail-biting climax takes place at a nuclear power station, where Yoland seeks to harness immense power to his ultimate spell.

The Dragon Syndicates

A sensational look at the history of, and the global threat posed by, the Chinese organised crime syndicates: the Triads.

It is not unreasonable to believe that potentially the greatest threat to world civil order...comes from Chinese international criminal syndicates and gangs otherwise collectively referred to as the Triads' FBI briefing report 
Triad societies are today the most widespread and ruthless criminal group in the history of the world, posing the most important criminal threat to world stability that has ever existed. Just as the Mafia are organised as 'families', so the Triads are organised as 'brotherhoods', often along clan lines. They are in essence over 2,000 years old. The father of modern China, Sun Yat-sen, was a Triad society member, creating and financing the great Republic of China through the degenerate trade of opium, which has now become the multi-million dollar heroin industry. Martin Booth's remarkable study encompasses not only the more 'traditional' localised crime - prostitution, theft, racketeering - but also their more repercussive activities on a global scale: the drugs trade, money laundering, stock market manipulation and insider dealing, computer hacking, international prostitution, infiltration of media assets, art smuggling, and much more. 
Today the Triads are poised to achieve what no organised crime gang has ever dared dream of - a complete, international criminal network, exclusively Chinese, almost impossible to infiltrate and with its fingers on the world's pulse through its own banking networks, legal affairs and political protection. Today, it would appear the Triads are ready to make the next century a Chinese century...seemingly, nothing can stop them. 
The Dragon Syndicates tells the full, incredible story of the Triads - their evolution over two millennia, their rituals and mythologies, their role in shaping this century, and the criminal history and lives of the main players. Sources within the UN claim the Triads pose the greatest criminal threat the world has ever known - after reading Martin Booth's authoritative, dynamic, superbly written and riveting new study, you'll understand why...

Music on the Bamboo Radio

Martin Booth was born in Lancashire but brought up in Hong Kong and Kenya. He describes himself as an inveterate traveller, writing on travel and conservation topics for several newspapers and magazines. His other writing interests include poetry, literary criticism and film and TV writing. Martin lives in Somerset.

Nicholas Highgate, separated from his parents during the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong, is smuggled to the mainland by his Chinese nurse and disguised as a Chinese boy. As he grows to manhood he witnesses the atrocities and deprivations of the Japanese occupation and is himself drawn into the Communist resistance activities. The book ends when the Japanese surrender and Nicholas is reunited with what remains of his family.

Martin Booth

When 12-year-old Daniel appears at Dark Creek ranch, the owner, Matt, takes him in. But this is Texas, 1861, the Civil War is raging and soon Matt leaves to join up. Accompanied by an elderly Mexican cowhand, No-head Nolan, an eccentric vaquero, Beto and Matt's daughter, Daniel is left to drive the cattle along the Shawnee Trail 680 miles to Kansas. It is a hazardous journey, across flooded rivers, through dangerous Indian territory, and facing ruthless banditos - this is the story of that incredible trip. A vividly drawn, historical adventure from this Booker shortlisted author.

Martin Booth

Books by Martin Booth

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