The Forensic Records Society

Mills uses his blokes in the back of a pub to tell a massively ambitious story A story that could be read as a disguised retelling of the Russian revolution, or the Reformation, or the Sunni-Shia schism, or any great human falling out. As soon as you form any kind of us, Mills suggests, a them will form in response. In this, The Forensic Records Society is like Animal Farm but with blokes for pigs, and much better songs * Guardian * For nearly twenty years Mills has been entertaining and occasionally perplexing readers with his enigmatic tales of thwarted expeditions, projects and schemes Tremendously funny. Mills is one of Britains best comic writers, and this is an excellent introduction to his scrupulously amusing world ... You will love this book. Buy one on Saturday to go with that Toto single -- Andy Miller * Spectator * It doesnt take long for the veneer of politeness to fall away and for obsession to take hold in this darkly witty novel -- The Best Paperbacks * Mail on Sunday * A demented, deadpan comic wonder -- Thomas Pynchon One of our most idiosyncratic voices ... Deceptively genial, eerily comic ... Mills is extremely good on the way obsessiveness is an end in itself for these barely distinguishable chaps ... It also contains some classic Mills hallmarks, including the unsettling impression something sinister is going on, if only you could work out what it is * Daily Mail * One for the pop pickers There are some wonderful aspects to The Forensic Records Society Bloomsbury have pushed the boat out with the packaging, which is a wonderful pastiche of the sort of vintage 1960s seven-inch single sleeve collectors covet at record fairs, and will really make you think there must be three minutes of music as well as 180 pages of prose to discover inside * Herald * This, his ninth novel, is as odd, simple and parabolic as the first eight ... The theme is unmistakable and unavoidable when humans can fall out, they will fall out **** * Metro * Magnus Mills is unique. There is simply no equivalent of his brand of domestic absurdism The most British of anarchists * Independent * A true original * Mail on Sunday * Hes original, hes eccentric and I predict that Magnus Mills will still be fascinating his admirers 100 years from now -- Kate Saunders * Saga *

Magnus Mills is the author of nine novels, including The Restraint of Beasts, which won the McKitterick Prize and was shortlisted for both the Booker Prize and the Whitbread (now the Costa) First Novel Award in 1999. His most recent novel, The Field of the Cloth of Gold was published to great critical acclaim and was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize 2015. His books have been translated into twenty languages. He lives in London.