Goodfellowe MP [Paperback]

Michael Dobbs (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2008

Michael Dobbs' popular new character Tom Goodfellowe, the crumpled backbench MP, makes his debut and takes on the might of the press in this highly acclaimed novel of power and corruption -- now reissued in a new cover style. INTO AN AGE CRYING OUT FOR NEW LEADERS STUMBLES THE MOST UNLIKELY POLITICAL HERO OF ALL. Tom Goodfellowe is not like other MPs. His private life is a mess, his love life is abysmal, he has an overdraft and a drink-driving conviction. He also has a talent for getting into trouble. He lives in London's Chinatown, and when he is asked to help a young Chinese girl, he has no idea he's heading into conflict with the Prime Minister, the police and the press -- particularly Freddy Corsa, a newspaper proprietor who sets out to ruin Goodfellowe financially, politically and sexually. Goodfellowe is one man against the system, and he is about to be destroyed in tomorrow's newspaper.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Goodfellowe is a modern political hero with all the welcome weaknesses we expect! The fun (and there's plenty of it) comes from watching honest Tom struggling with his own frailties and battling against the massed ranks of base politicians and a debased media. Michael Dobbs does for Westminster skulduggery what Agatha Christie did for the country house murder. He knows what we like and he knows how to spin a rattling good yarn.' Sunday Express 'Splendid, as good as anything Dobbs has done.' Sunday Telegraph 'Eventful and entertaining! a truly exciting Mounties-to-the-rescue climax.' Daily Telegraph

From the Publisher

'Michael Dobbs does for Westminster skulduggery what Agatha Christie did for the country house murder. He knows what we like and he knows how to spin a rattling good yarn.' - Gyles Brandreth, Sunday Express

'Splendid, as good as anything Dobbs has done.' - Sunday Telegraph

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 337 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins (December 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0006477100
• ISBN-13: 978-0006477105
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #775,760 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful Read in British Politics, June 28, 2009

By 

Carol L. Marsh "Voracious reader" (Missoula, Montana) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Goodfellowe MP (Paperback)

You may know author Michael Dobbs from the sophisticated BBC/PBS series based on his Francis Urquhart trilogy, "House of Cards," "To Play the King" and "The Final Cut."

Urquhart was a fascinating villain. Thomas Goodfellowe, M.P., the protagonist of this series, is poor, honest, and sharp as a razor. "Goodfellowe, M.P.," is the first novel of a trilogy (I hope for more)that includes "The Buddha of Brewer Street" and "Whispers of Betrayal."

Goodfellowe's political clout and income have declined precipitously since he resigned his ministerial post to spend more time with his family (really!) after his son's accidental death. But as the book opens, his wife has removed herself from the unbearable pain of reality and lives in a mental institute he can't afford, and his only remaining child, an adolescent daughter too inconventional and talented to fit in at her boarding school, feels he's deserted her. And he's about to be hit with a scandal, apparent but not real, that rocks his already shaky world.

His strong women characters, especially his daughter and the woman he's falling in love with, defend their own rights and needs with a take-no-prisoners fierceness that measures how much the world's views of women have changed in my lengthy lifetime.

I'll leave the story there, and let Dobbs tell you the rest, if it sounds like your cup of tea. I'm busy tracking down and reading everything he wrote.

4.0 out of 5 stars Missed By That Much!, July 16, 2011

By 

Allan Pratt - See all my reviews

This review is from: Goodfellowe MP (Paperback)

I've read a half dozen or so popular `thrillers' in recent weeks by authors whose names, at least, were familiar to me.

But after shaking my head at the comic-level improbability of Harlen Coben and Michael Connelly novels, and refusing to endure more than a couple of chapters of Jeffery Archer, when I began reading Michael Dobbs' GOODFELLOWE MP, I thought I'd arrived, at last, at the Premier League.

Dobbs' tale of boa constrictor intrigue by big business, inexorably squeezing the breath and hope out of a decent man who happens to be in their path, is told with growing tension and flair. It's an enjoyable read.

Tom Goodfellowe, a once-promising politician, is down on his luck as a result of a domino-series of personal tragedies. But a financial silver-lining appears at hand. At the lure of a series of handsome pay-days, simply for writing the odd newspaper article, he is almost unwittingly drawn into the grand and nefarious commercial scheme of highly intelligent but utterly unscrupulous press baron, Freddy Corsa (could there possibly be such a creature as an utterly unscrupulous press baron?).

Goodfellowe's conscience, though, is towering. He ultimately smells a seriously rotten egg and rails against increasingly sinister attempts at manipulation. Retribution is swift and brutal. He soon finds his personal world collapses around him. It may be a truism that you can't fight City Hall, but fighting the Big End of Town is suicidal.

Goodfellowe's potential love interest, the beautiful Russian/Irish restaurateur, is about as convincing as a $3 note, but most of the peripheral characters that populate the story are superbly drawn. Dobbs paints a picture of the MP's compromised colleagues that is all too plausible. And he is even better at outlining the initially innocuous but inevitably doomed situations that led them to perdition. The subtlety of the pressures put on these men, and indeed, Goodfellowe himself, appears irresistible. After all, who's averse to stashes of ostensibly legitimate cash? And how many of us wouldn't be quick to rationalise such largesse when the bags appear to get a little bit dirty, or when the source threatens to dry up altogether?

There are no shoot-outs here; no car chases; no gratuitous sex(unfortunately) but as the sweat beads gather on Goodfellowe's brow as cold, calculating corporate interests begin to crush his career, reputation, family and thus his life, this thriller really does thrill.

..................Oh dear. Then Hollywood enters stage left. The final dozen pages of this otherwise excellent novel descend into the clichéd Good versus Evil denouement where the Baddies are soundly thrashed and the Good Guys live happily ever after. This bit could have been written by Archer.

Dobbs has missed it by that much!

3.0 out of 5 stars well it's not dickens, May 16, 2002

By 

Barry Gahan (Oxford, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Goodfellowe MP (Hardcover)

Michael Dobbs does not paint a pretty picture of British politics in this thrilling if somewhat predictable politcal thriller. Intrigue, deception, lies and skullduggery are what Tom Goodfellowe, our honorable hero (and seemingly the only politician with a scrap of integrity), must deal with in his fight to expose the truth behind the passage through the House of Commons of an apparently innocuous bill.
Throw in a rebellious daughter, an unscrupulous newspaper owner, a beautiful Russian hostess (Molly o' Malley from Co. Carlow, Ireland, no less), a backstabbing political ally, and many more well contrived characters, and you get quite a page turner. I was hoping for more insight into life at Westminster and the happy ending could not have been better scripted by Frank Capra.
Mention of Capra reminds me of the similarities in this book to the Hollywood classic "Mr. Smith goes to Washington" where again we have our hero fighting th establishment. It's the first book i've read by Dobbs and i'd best recommend it as an alternative to John Grisham for those long journeys.