Rules of Civility

In a New York City jazz bar on the last night of 1937, watching a quartet because she couldn’t afford to see the whole ensemble, there were certain things Katey Kontent knew:
· how to sneak into the cinema, and steal silk stockings from Bendel’s
· how to type eighty words a minute, five thousand an hour, and nine million a year
· that if you can still lose yourself in a Dickens novel then everything is going to be fine

By the end of the year she’ll have learned:
· how to live like a redhead and insist upon the very best
· that chance encounters can be fated, and the word ‘yes’ can be a poison
· that riches can turn to rags in the trip of a heartbeat . . .

‘If the unthinkable happened and I could never read another new work of fiction . . . I’d simply re-read this sparkling, stylish book, with yet another round of martinis as dry as the author’s wit’ Herald

‘Terrific. A smart, witty, charming dry-martini of a novel‘ David Nicholls, author of One Day

‘Achingly stylish . . . A witty, slick production, replete with dark intrigue, period details, and a suitably Katharine Hepburn-like heroine’ Guardian