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by Mike Phillips
A blistering, original thriller that examines the powerful link between identity, sacrifice, and possession, as a Black university professor plans a burglary to "liberate" an African sculpture from a London museum ...
University lecturer Gus knows that stealing the priceless Benin mask, the Dancing Face, from a museum at the heart of the British establishment will gain an avalanche of attention. Which is exactly what he wants.
But such a risky theft will also inevitably capture the attention of characters with more money, more power, and fewer morals.
Naively entangling his loved ones in his increasingly dangerous pursuit of righteous reparation, is Gus prepared for what it will cost him?
"Phillips tackles themes of colonialism and Black British identity with a sharp intelligence, but too often politics overshadow plot, and the narrative's glacial pacing and long-winded dream sequences further drag things down. It's an ambitious misfire." —Publishers Weekly
"This book is brutal, deep, cunning and unbearably beautiful" —The Independent
This information about The Dancing Face was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Mike Phillips was born in Guyana, and grew up in London. He worked for the BBC as a journalist and broadcaster on television programs before becoming a lecturer in media studies at the University of Westminster. He has written many critically-acclaimed crime novels, including Blood Rights, which is being adapted for BBC television, and The Late Candidate, winner of the Crime Writers' Association Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction. He is also the author of an essay collection, London Crossings: A Biography of Black Britain. He lives in London.
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