'Ingenious' New York Times
'Mesmerising' The Times
'Loveable' Evening Standard

Nine-year-old Tooly is spirited away from Bangkok by a seductive group of outsiders who take her from city to city across the globe. At twenty, she is wandering the streets of Manhattan with a scribbled-on map, scamming strangers for her shadowy protector, Venn.

Now, aged thirty-one, she runs a second-hand bookshop on the Welsh borders and has found peace with her strange upbringing - until she's called to return to New York to see her dying father.

Warm, hilarious and fizzing with intelligence, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers is a masterpiece about the search for identity.

"One of the paciest, easiest to read novels you could imagine . . . Mesmerising: a thorough work-out for the head and heart that targets cognitive muscles you never knew you had" - The Times

"Some novels are such good company that you don't want them to end; Tom Rachman knows this, and has pulled off the feat of writing one . . . A touching story of fallen idols, with brilliant insights into misplaced loyalties, and the power that adults have over children. Rachman has written a hugely likeable, even loveable book about the people we meet and how they shape us" - Sunday Telegraph

"Ingenious . . . Rachman needs only a few well-drawn characters to fill a large canvas and an impressive swath of history" - New York Times

"The way the three stories mesh is a wonderful thing - suspense and intrigue in equal measure. Every so often it reminded me of Donna Tartt" - Evening Standard

"The detail is never overdone, the language is quirky and the novel's structure is beautifully managed" - The Lady

"When a Tom Rachman novel lands in the bookstores I stop living and breathing to devour it. It's hard to think of anyone who has a better grasp on the world we live in (and I mean, like, the entire planet) and can write about it with such entertainment and panache" - Gary Shteyngart