{"title":"Books by Robert Rankin","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780552138444","title":"The Sprouts Of Wrath","description":"\u003cp\u003eAmazing, but true: Brentford Town Council, in an act of supreme public-spiritedness (and a great big wodge of folding stuff from a mysterious benefactor) has agreed to host the next Olympic Games.  The plans have been drawn up, contracts, money and promises are changing hands.  Norman's designed some stunning kit for the home team, and even the Flying Swan's been threatened with a major refit (gasp!).  But something is very wrong...primeval forces are stirring in ancient places...dark magic is afoot in Brentford and someone must save the world from overpowering evil...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e...Jim Pooley and John Omally, come on down!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis must be the daring duo's toughest assignment yet.  No longer can they weigh up the situation over a pint of large at random moments during the day.  No, this time, to save the world as we know it, the lads must contemplate - nay, undertake - the most horrible, the most terrifying, the heretofore untried - REGULAR EMPLOYMENT!!!\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56291075424629,"sku":"9780552138444","price":15.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780552138444_b4a6d306-a39c-4f96-b89d-c6bfe421be44.jpg?v=1786013738"},{"product_id":"9780552147415","title":"Sex And Drugs And Sausage Rolls","description":"\u003cp\u003eHe becomes funnier the more you read him.' Independent\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt has always been John Omally's secret ambition to become a rock star. In his youth he mastered air guitar and wardrobe-mirror posing, but he lacked that certain something. Talent. But at last an opportunity has arisen for John to get into 'The Industry'. A band called Gandhi's Hairdryer are looking for a manager, so all John has to do is persuade them that he is the new Brian Epstein. It should be a piece of cake. But - and there's always a but - there is something rather odd about this band. Something other-worldly. It might be the lead singer, whose voice has the power to heal. Might she be an angel, perhaps? Or could she be the Devil in disguise? Because, after all, the Devil does have all the best tunes. And this is Brentford.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this, his final offering of the twentieth century, Robert Rankin returns to the town of his birth, the friends of his youth and one of the loves of his life: Rock Music.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Everybody should read at least one Robert Rankin in their life.' Daily Express\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56291075817845,"sku":"9780552147415","price":15.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780552147415_dfb6ce43-8a50-4cfd-bb04-e59551c4db2d.jpg?v=1786013790"},{"product_id":"9780552142113","title":"The Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived","description":"\u003cp\u003eNorman's definitely dead.  His dad fell out of the sky and flattened him.  And as Norman didn't want any regular full-time employment before he died, he certainly doesn't want any now.  Especially not here at The Universal Reincarnation Company.  There's far too many filing cabinets and far too much paperwork.  Not that it's the company's fault.  The blame really lies with God.  If He hadn't decided to close down Hell, then Heaven wouldn't have got too overcrowded and there would have been no need to build the extension.  And until the extension is finished, the U.R.C. will just have to keep on recycling all those souls in the big queue.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf your taste is for a tender romance, taut with passion and desire, love and betrayal, then this raging stonker of a novel, bursting out of its leather pants with sex, scandal, murder, mystery, suspense, drama, action, adventure and Mad Car Disease, probably won't be for you.  Sorry.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56291507208565,"sku":"9780552142113","price":15.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780552142113_ef4e1dc0-171a-4971-9bb9-64ec32aa96f8.jpg?v=1786013751"},{"product_id":"9780552143578","title":"The Brentford Chain-Store Massacre","description":"\u003cp\u003eThere is nothing more powerful than a bad idea whose time has come.  And there can be few ideas less bad or more potentially apocalyptic than that hatched by genetic scientist Dr Stephen Malone.  Using DNA strands extracted from the dried blood on the Turin Shroud, Dr Malone is cloning Jesus.  And not just a single Jesus, he's going for a full half-dozen so that each of the world's major religions can have one.  It's a really bad idea.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn Brentford they've had a really good idea.  They're holding the Millennial Celebrations two years early to avoid the rush.  It's a tradition, or an old charter, or something.  And it promises to be the party of this, or any other, century.  Unless, of course, something REALLY BAD was to happen...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDescribed as a 'stark raving genius' (Observer), Robert Rankin has once again surpassed himself in his latest creation.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56291541123445,"sku":"9780552143578","price":15.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780552143578_ed8cdf42-6e0a-4f81-87c9-09669ea8d337.jpg?v=1786013762"},{"product_id":"9780552138413","title":"The Antipope","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Outside the sun shines.  Buses rumble towards Ealing Broadway and I'm expected to do battle with the powers of darkness.  It all seems a little unfair...'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou could say it all started with the red-eyed tramp with the slimy fingers who put the wind up Neville, the part-time barman, something rotten.  Or when Archroy's wife swapped his trusty Morris Minor for five magic beans while he was out at the rubber factory.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the other hand, you could say it all started a lot earlier.  Like 450 years ago, when Borgias walked the earth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePooley and Omally, stars of the Brentford Laboiur Exchange and the Flying Swan, want nothing to do with it, especially if there's a Yankee and a pint of Large in the offing.  Pope Alexander VI, last of the Borgias, has other ideas...\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56292004757877,"sku":"9780552138413","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780552138413_3227f1dd-341e-4d06-80b1-3b0aafedc1d6.jpg?v=1786033125"},{"product_id":"9780552138420","title":"The Brentford Triangle","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Omally groaned.  \"It is the end of mankind as we know it.  I should never have got up so early today\" and all over Brentford electrical appliances were beginning to fail...'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCould it be that Pooley and Omally, whilst engaged on a round of allotment golf, mistook laser-operated gravitational landing beams for the malignant work of Brentford Council?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDoes the Captain Laser Alien Attack machine in the bar of the Swan possess more sinister force than its magnetic appeal for youths with green hair?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIs Brentford the first base in an alien onslaught on planet Earth?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56292005478773,"sku":"9780552138420","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780552138420_7df85f56-b896-4499-b22a-cbaccdc24fda.jpg?v=1786013737"},{"product_id":"9780552174985","title":"East Of Ealing","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Ahead, where once had been only bombsite land, the Lateinos and Romiith building rose above Brentford.  Within its cruel and jagged shadow, magnolias wilted in their window boxes and synthetic Gold Top became doorstep cheese...'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSomething sinister is happening east of Ealing.  The prophecies of The Book of Revelation are being fulfilled.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLateinos \u0026amp; Romiith, a vast financial network, is changing all the rules with a plan to bar-code every living punter and dispense with old-fashioned money.  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Did you know that Queen Victoria had a sexual relationship with Dr Watson? Or that the elephant man was a product of an E.T.\/human hybridisation programme? 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This catastrophic conflagration caused considerable concern to the pious colonel, who had been engaged in the creation of 'Heaven's last and best gift to Mankind', The Mechanical Messiah. And he was, after all, being guided in this Great Work by holy  angels, communicating to him through his monkey butler, Darwin. It is 1897, twelve years since The War of the Worlds and two since Worlds War Two*. The British Empire encompasses Mars, and an uneasy peace exists between the peoples of Venus, Jupiter and Earth. In London there are many marvels of the modern age to be experienced. Amongst these is The  Electric Alhambra Music Hall, where crowds thrill to The Earl Grey Whistle Test, a musical extravaganza featuring such top turns as Hayward's Acrobatic Kiwis, The Travelling Formbys and the newly-arrived  Colonel Katterfelto's Clockwork Minstrels. But all is far from well in old Whitechapel, where a monster is once more abroad in the night-time streets, committing hideous acts of murder. 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