'Be warned. This book has no literary merit whatsoever. It is a lurid piece of nonsense, convoluted, implausible, peopled by unconvincing characters, written in drearily pedestrian prose, frequently ridiculous and wilfully bizarre. Needless to say, I doubt you'll believe a word of it.'

So starts the extraordinary tale of Edward Moon, detective, his silent sidekick the Somnambulist and a devilish plot to recreate the apocalyptic prophecies of William Blake and bring the British Empire crashing down.

With a gallery of vividly grotesque characters, a richly evoked setting and a playful highly literate style this is an amazingly readable literary fantasy and a brilliant debut.