Alms For Oblivion Volume III

''Brisk, bawdy and reckless'' Evening Standard

''A freak writer, he defies classification. In wilder moments he suggests a loose, lunatic collaboration of Trollope, Ouida and Waugh'' Observer

The Alms for Oblivion sequence - an extraordinary series of murders, suicides, affairs, fighting, fires and at least one explosion, blackmail, gambling, illness, madness, lots of parties and plenty of sex - draws to a close with two novels about death and retribution. But Simon Raven''s achievement and the conflicted, colourful or uniquely vile characters he created are not easily forgotten after the last page is turned.

Volume III includes Bring Forth the Body and The Survivors

''There are some people who consider the greatest cycle of twentieth-century novels to be Anthony Powell''s A Dance to the Music of Time. These people are wrong. Widmerpool and his joyless accomplices are as nothing compared to the characters in Simon Raven''s majestic, scurrilous and scabrous Alms for Oblivion cycle'' Guardian