Red Joan - Softcover

JENNIE ROONEY was born in Liverpool in 1980. She studied History at the University of Cambridge and taught English in France before moving to London to work as a lawyer. Her debut novel, Inside the Whale, was a Richard and Judy debut choice and was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award. She is also the author of The Opposite of Falling.

“Rooney is a novelist at home with life’s ambiguities, her plotting pleasingly intricate, her narrative richly textured. As the needle swings around her moral compass, her characters are contradictory, our sympathies for them similarly so. Even though I kept remembering the opening vignette, in which Joan is shown to be the sort of granny who steals geranium cuttings from her neighbour’s garden, her realistic vulnerability won my affection.”
—Telegraph (UK)

“An exciting and intelligent novel. . . . Rooney’s re-creation of the politics of the day is brilliant.”
—The Times
 
“Rooney has already shown herself to be a marvelous portrait artist of character in her previous two novels. . . . This is an infectious page-turner, as crafty and nuanced and impassioned as any classic thriller, but one that doesn't forget where its heart is . . . and is a case study in how to handle complex characters and motivations, keeping the reader on tenterhooks until the work's final moments.”
—The National

“Red Joan is a captivating tale. . . . Jennie Rooney’s elegantly cra­fted tale moves fluidly.”
—Chatelaine