Dimensions
108 x 140 x 17mm
Two Cassettes.
Read by Jake Arnott.
London. The 1960s. The capital is swinging, but beneath the boomtown there's a dark underbelly.
Meet Harry Starks: club owner, racketeer, porn king, sociology graduate and keen Judy Garland fan. There is a business like showbusiness - it's what Harry does. Fronting violence with rough charm and cheap glamour; performing menace while trying to jump the counter into legitimacy.
In 'The Long Firm' five characters spectacularly chart Harry's rise and fall:
- Terry: Harry's kept boy finds himself caught up in a long firm and learns first hand about Harry's persuasive methods . . .
- Lord Thursby: a closeted Tory recently kicked upstairs and in a spot of financial bother. Legitimising Harry's business brings him cash - and boys - but ultimately leads him to a farcical heart of darkness . . .
- Jack the Hat: a doomed gangster teams up with Harry for the Thiefrow Airport racket as he hurtles on a speed-fuelled journey to his own fate . . .
- Ruby Ryder: down on her luck, this fading starlet gets involved in Harry's dealings with the "dirty squad". But as his porn empire crumbles she finds herself in a deadly menage a trois . . .
- Lenny: a hip young lecturer and radical criminologist. When his star pupil goes on the run, Gangster expounds theory and Criminologist turns criminal in an explosive denouement on the Costa Del Crime . . .
Each tale interlocks in an epic testimony where high life meets low life and real and imaginary characters spar with each other as the seedy end of the Swinging Sixties is revealed in ruthless verisimilitude.
