Low dishonest dealings

The strange, unsettled decades between the wars form the backdrop of much of D. J. Taylor’s recent work, including his novel, Ask Alice, and his social history, Bright Young Things. At the Chime of a City Clock is set in 1931, with a financial crisis rumbling in the background.

The strange, unsettled decades between the wars form the backdrop of much of D. J. Taylor’s recent work, including his novel, Ask Alice, and his social history, Bright Young Things. At the Chime of a City Clock is set in 1931, with a financial crisis rumbling in the background. James Ross, a struggling writer, tries to keep his landlady at bay with the meagre income he earns as a door-to-door carpet-cleaner salesman. On his rounds he encounters Susie Chamberlain, a disturbingly sexy secretary, who appears to welcome his attentions. Her employer, the mysterious Mr Rasmussen, dabbles in murky commercial enterprises, mixes in the best society and looks oddly like one of the photographs of wanted men in Police News.