Green Ink
THE TIMES 'Fascinating' Books To Look Out For 2025
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Swift Press
Published:13th Mar '25
Should be back in stock very soon

THE TIMES BOOKS TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2025
'Stephen May has a nose for fascinating historical events' The Times
'Very fine and fun novel' The Spectator
'The spry, sardonic voice of the new historical fiction' Hilary Mantel
'Vivid and wholly credible recreation of post-Great War London' Robert Edric
'Intrigue, betrayal, redemption' Rachel Seiffert
David Lloyd George is at Chequers for the weekend with his mistress Frances Stevenson, fretting about the fact that his involvement in selling public honours is about to be revealed by one Victor Grayson. Victor is a bisexual hedonist and former firebrand socialist MP turned secret-service informant. Intent on rebuilding his profile as the leader of the revolutionary Left, he doesn’t know exactly how much of a hornet’s nest he’s stirred up. Doesn’t know that this is, in fact, his last day.
No one really knows what happened to Victor Grayson – he vanished one night in late September 1920, having threatened to reveal all he knew about the prime minister’s involvement in selling honours. Was he murdered by the British government? By enemies in the socialist movement (who he had betrayed in the war)? Did he fall in the Thames drunk? Did he vanish to save his own life, and become an antiques dealer in Kent?
Whatever the truth, Green Ink imagines what might have been with brio, humour and humanity; and is a reminder that the past was once as alive as we are today.
‘A vivid and wholly credible recreation of post-Great War London – that threadbare, incendiary world of shabby intrigue, half-remembered figures now lost to the shadows, and an old order desperate to reestablish its corrupt credentials and squandered authority. All is imagined here in convincing and sardonic – and frequently hilarious – detail. Following the success of Sell Us The Rope, Stephen May has truly hit his stride’ - Robert Edric
'Intrigue, betrayal, redemption - a glimpse behind the political scenes of a bygone British era that feels very contemporary' - Rachel Seiffert
'Stephen May has a nose for fascinating historical events, which he then gives the fictional treatment' - The Times Books to Look Out For In 2025
'Funny, scurrilous, revealing and memorable' - Historical Novel Society
'May has a nose for historical curiosities ... good at capturing the cynical mood of the 1920s, the world of flappers and traumatised veterans and corrupt swells ... Clever and playful' - Robbie Millen, The Times
'An idiosyncratic, rather dreamlike novel: it doesn’t so much bring history to life as use a clutch of historical figures to showcase the author’s own captivatingly offbeat intelligence' - Jake Kerridge, The Telegraph
'Green Ink is a wonderful confection – with obvious echoes today – and has a prose style as nimble as a maître d at rush hour' - Crack Magazine, Book of the Month
'An intriguing mystery that cuts the mustard as a political thriller and a literary historical novel ... Witty but sinister nonetheless, with contemporary resonance' - Crime Time FM
‘May has found his forte speculating on the ‘what ifs’ of history. That he imbues his story with a rallying call for feminism and neatly solves the mystery surrounding the narrator only further increases my admiration for this very fine and fun novel’ - Susie Mesure, The Spectator
'In his compelling new novel Stephen May engages with one of the great mysteries in British political history' - Unseen Histories
Praise for Sell Us the Rope
‘Original, adept and confident... What can I say, except that I wish I had written it myself?’ Hilary Mantel
‘A deeply satisfying novel. Incisive, inventive, frequently very funny’ Guardian
‘Historical facts furnish May with a cast of legends to bring to life, and he does it with verve and humour’ The Times
‘Brilliant and original — part historical novel, part romantic comedy, and part bildungsroman about a tyrant-in-waiting’ Marcel Theroux
‘A captivating thought-experiment that marks a consolidation of May’s powers as a writer' Daily Telegraph
ISBN: 9781800754676
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
288 pages