Mad Blood Stirring - Hardcover

Simon Mayo is one of England’s most admired radio presenters. He has worked on BBC radio since 1982 and is now the presenter of Drivetime on BBC Radio 2. He lives in London.

“Instructive as well as entertaining. Mayo’s book dazzles.”
- New York Times Book Review

“Truth regularly outdoes fiction in this unpredictable book. Rollicking fun, written with rude energy and humor.”
- Wall Street Journal

“Wonderful―a story I never heard before, told with style, pace, character, texture, and tension. Bliss.”
- Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“The passions unleashed in this riveting account places black against white, Americans against Britons, and the stirring soul of a forbidden love caught in between. It’s a rapid page-turner with dark humor, intellectual heft, and a gallery of deeply human characters that shake our spirits.”
- Sir Kenneth Branagh

“Mayo has shone a dramatic spotlight on a hotbed of racial tension and a unique pursuit of creativity that will leave readers rapt from the story’s beginning to its conclusion.”
- BookTrib

“Like Thomas Keneally’s The Playmaker, this novel, based on historical record, stirringly dramatizes how theater, stories, and art can be used as a vehicle of uplift in the midst of the most trying, dehumanizing circumstances. Mayo has created a searing portrait of humanity at its most brutal and tender.”
- Publishers Weekly

“Bristling with energy, written with passion, Mad Blood Stirring is a joy to read.”
- John Boyne, New York Times bestselling author of 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas'