The Millionaire Waltz

London in the 1920s: a young woman treads the path between danger and desire.



Against a backdrop of thuggish blackmail, constricting high society and a London still fragile from the war, Edie Greenlaw is trying to decide what she wants from the world. The closer the prospect of marriage with her handsome war hero fiance becomes, the less fulfilling it seems. Defying caution she goes to the aid of a friend and entangles herself in a dangerous demi-monde of sexual extortion and violence.

The Millionaire Waltz revisits characters and places that will be familiar to readers of Curtain Call, such as the outrageous theatre critic Jimmy Erskine, the penniless emigre pianist Laszlo, and the actress Nina Land, whose first encounter here with Edie becomes a vital friendship on stage and off. It enlarges a fresco of interwar London in all its glamour, its excitement, and its uncertain shadows.

'Anthony Quinn creates a world so full of charm and intrigue that it is hard to leave for a moment. Utterly beguiling' Denise Mina

' No one honours the novel's traditional virtues quite as faithfully as Anthony Quinn ' Jonathan Coe