Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman

Mr Vandemar pulled the rat from the blade and began to munch on it, thoughtfully, head first. Mr Croup slapped it out of his hands. ‘Stop that’ he said. Mr Vandemar put his knife away, a little sullenly. ‘Buck up,’ hissed Mr Croup, encouragingly. ‘There will always be another rat. Now: onward. Things to do. People to damage.’

Under the streets of London there's a world most people could never even dream of.

A city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, and pale girls in black velvet.

Richard Mayhew is a young businessman who is about to find out more than he bargained for about this other London. A single act of kindness catapults him out of his safe and predictable life and into a world that is at once eerily familiar and yet utterly bizarre.

There's a girl named Door, an Angel called Islington, an Earl who holds Court on the carriage of a Tube train, a Beast in a labyrinth, and dangers and delights beyond imagining...And Richard, who only wants to go home, is to find a strange destiny waiting for him below the streets of his native city.

This stunningly original and brilliant first novel from storytelling genius Neil Gaiman has now been variously adapted into a graphic novel, a television series and an acclaimed six-part radio dramatisation on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 4 Extra. Fans of the story can delve further into the world of Neverwhere with the novella How the Marquis Got His Coat Back.

Includes extra material exclusive to this Headline Review edition.

‘Gaiman is a brilliant storyteller and with Neverwhere he tapped into something that anyone who knows London, even just a little bit, can relate to: its history, its romance and its many dark corners.’ – The Guardian

A master of strange and wonderful worlds, Neil Gaiman began his career first as a journalist and biographer but his writing career really began with ground-breaking comic series Sandman, which received a number of awards, including being the first comic to win a World Fantasy Award. An undoubted cult figure in the arena of fantasy fiction, his output includes prose, poetry, film, journalism, comics, song lyrics, and drama but he is best known for his bestselling novels, including Neverwhere, American Gods, Stardust and his books for children including The Graveyard Book, Coraline and The Ocean at the End of the Lane.