The Dark Arts
England, 1975. A boxer refuses to throw a fight, and Tommy Reilly has him killed on his wedding night. The boxer’s two sons, eight and five, wake up orphans. Tommy takes them in.
England, 1995. The Premier League has sold itself to television for hundreds of millions of pounds, Oasis are on every radio, and a country that spent the eighties being told there was no such thing as society has decided there is, and it looks like a football match on a Saturday afternoon. The money is new. The violence is ancient. And Tommy Reilly has been waiting for both.
“In an era of globalisation, vast wealth and Premier League dominance, Harvey’s portrayal feels disturbingly and distinctly plausible.”
The Dark Arts is the first novel in a multi-generational crime saga set in the first years of the Premier League and the end of the analogue era. A novel about what it costs to be made by a powerful man, and what it takes to unmake yourself.
“Ambitious in scope, rich in character and bold in its portrayal of corruption, it is a powerful and memorable book for readers who appreciate multi-layered crime fiction, drama and football.”
Aisha Thompson
Hired by the Football Association as its new compliance director, then handed a broadcasting review to keep her quiet. Not expected to follow a dead bookmaker’s paper trail toward the truth. The only Black woman at Lancaster Gate, in an institution where powerful men have spent careers ensuring that certain questions never get asked twice.
Connor Murphy
Twenty-eight, running Tommy’s betting shops from an office in Canary Wharf and quietly building the legitimate future Tommy refuses to see. He has spent his whole life believing Tommy Reilly saved him. Tommy didn’t save him. Tommy made him, carefully, over two decades, out of the grief of a boy who had no one else to turn to.
Ronnie Gallagher
The most corrupt referee in English football, and the only person who understands it from the inside. At seventeen, with Liverpool watching, Tommy’s people strapped his injured knee and sent him back out. Twenty-three games later it was over. The brown envelopes followed. Now Tommy wants more than bent penalties. He wants Ronnie to fix a title race.
Sarah Turner
Reads her husband’s moods from the sound of his footsteps on the stairs. Rick arrived in Tommy’s orbit already broken, and the walls between their flat above the pub and everything below are thin enough that her ten-year-old son has learned to go quiet and listen. The exits are fewer than they were.
José Mathias
Eighteen, from a São Paulo favela, sold to Manchester United for a fee that could rebuild his mother’s street. He arrives with ten words of English into a country that has already decided who he is. The best player in the book, and the one with the least idea of what is being done to him.
Tommy Reilly
Silver-haired, soft-spoken, photographed with ministers at charity dinners. He has built an empire on fixed matches and shallow graves. He raised the boys he orphaned. He remembers every favour and forgives nothing.
Frank Sullivan
Behind the bar for twenty years. Plays an out-of-tune piano when the pub makes him, while a room full of damaged, ordinary people sing along. He knows what Tommy is. He has always known. He is finally running out of reasons to stay silent.