Coe's 'innovative' new book due in November 2024

Viking will publish Jonathan Coe’s new book, The Proof of My Innocence, billed as a "political critique wrapped up in a murder mystery", in November 2024.

Isabel Wall, editorial director at Viking, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to the book following an exclusive submission from Caroline Wood at Felicity Bryan Associates. The book will be published in November 2024.

The book follows Eleonore Reeves (known as Leo) who moves back home with her parents after graduation and is frustrated by the narrow horizons of English country life. But when Richard, an old family friend, comes to stay for the weekend, she’s refreshed by his political outlook, and intrigued by the spark of attraction she detects between him and her mother.  

Richard tells Leo that he’s been researching a book so explosive that it might put his life in danger: the true story of a group of students and academics, all present at Cambridge University in the early 1980s, who went on to form an influential think-tank which has been quietly lobbying the government to sell off the NHS.  

After years in the political wilderness they’re finally in a position to put their plans into action. Richard is on the cusp of a major breakthrough when tragedy strikes. But does the solution to Richard’s murder lie in contemporary politics, or somewhere else entirely – in a literary enigma from 40 years ago? 

“Darting between decades, perspectives and countries, The Proof of My Innocence is a state-of-the-nation novel with a big heart, exploring how the key to understanding the present can only be found in the murky past,” Viking said. “Most of all it is an exploration of a young graduate finding her way in the uncertain and constantly shifting Britain into which she was born.” 

Wall said: “Jonathan Coe is one of Britain’s greatest living novelists, who moves effortlessly between the epic and the intimate, the personal and the political, whose writing is as wickedly funny and scalpel-sharp as it is warm, generous and tender. With each new novel his political antennae become ever more attuned, his understanding of human beings deeper and truer. The Proof of My Innocence promises to be Coe at his very best: a political critique wrapped up in a murder mystery, blending genres but reimagining them in typically warm, witty – and innovative – fashion. I’m immensely proud to be publishing this major new novel.” 

Coe said: “It’s now 30 years since Penguin signed up my novel What a Carve Up! I’m thrilled that our relationship has endured so long and has now entered a dynamic new phase with Isabel as my editor. I’m also grateful to the readers who’ve stayed loyal to me over so many years, and hope that they enjoy this latest blend of politics, comedy and murder mystery.” 

Coe was born in Birmingham in 1961 and is the author of political satires such as What a Carve Up! and Number 11, and family sagas such as The Rotters’ Club and The Rain Before It Falls (all published by Penguin), his novels have won prizes at home and abroad, including Costa Novel of the Year and the Prix du Livre Européen. His most recent novel, Bournville (Penguin), is currently a finalist for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction. 

Coe has sold 891,644 copies of his books for £7.2m, with his bestseller the paperback edition of The Rotters’ Club (Penguin), on 150,588 copies sold according to Nielsen BookScan.