Novels
Announcement: JWS’s new novel, Jam, which is entirely set in a traffic jam on the M25, will be coming out in 2014. Details will follow soon.
The Pure (March 2012)
This is Jake Wallis Simons’ first thriller, written as Jake Simons
Buckle up. There’s a new Bourne in town.
The time is now. The place is London. Meet Uzi, a disaffected, deadly ex-Mossad agent with revenge on his mind. Living alone in a grimy bedsit, he spends his time dealing low-level drugs and trying to come to terms with how his life in espionage went so badly wrong.
Uzi holds some incriminating secrets about the Mossad which involve politicians at the highest level. When an old comrade persuades him to give details of a top-secret Israeli assassination operation to WikiLeaks, Uzi is instantly millions of dollars richer. But he has made himself a marked man.
Enter a mysterious, sexy woman known as Liberty. She is running an international drugs cartel, and has a background in the CIA. Clearly attracted to Uzi, Liberty grants him protection if he works for her. Meanwhile, Iran is getting ever closer to building a nuclear weapon. And only Uzi holds the intelligence to stop them. Or allow them to succeed . . .
The action that follows involves motorcycle chases, gunfights in the woods, and Iranian intelligence outposts on the coast of Syria. The power balance of the Middle East is on a knife-edge, and the security of the world is in danger. Only Uzi can prevent disaster. But does he have the strength to do so?
The Pure is a hugh-octane, action-packed, adrenaline-pumping espionage thriller. Buy it. Now.
The English German Girl (April 2011)
• A winner of the Fiction Uncovered competition
• A Waterstones “next big thing” title
• In the top 100 bestselling ebooks, Christmas 2011
• A top 3 bestseller in Israel
“Fascinating and moving.” –Monica Ali
“A powerful evocation of a bygone era.” –Sir Martin Gilbert
“Rosa must carry her suitcase herself. She heaves it up, walks through the doorway, looks back one final time: Papa and Mama are standing arm in arm, they are waving, but their masks have fallen away, they look hopeless, and that is the worst thing of all; Rosa turns her back and they are gone.”
The Klein family is slowly but surely losing everything they hold dear – or ever took for granted – as Hitler’s anti-Jewish laws take hold in 1930s Berlin. In desperation, fifteen-year-old
Rosa is put on a Kindertransport train out of Germany, to begin a new life in England. In a foreign country, barely able to make herself understood, she struggles to find a way to rescue her parents. Overtaken by the war, however, they gradually lose touch. Now Rosa must face the prospect of not only being unable to fulfil her vow to save her family but also of an unknown future, quite alone.
One of Britain’s most compelling and original new voices, Jake Wallis Simons blends meticulous research with powerful storytelling in an epic journey from heartbreak to hope
The English German Girl is available on Amazon, as a Kindle ebook, and as an Audiobook.
The Exiled Times of a Tibetan Jew (2005)
An Independent on Sunday book of the year
“Here is a new young voice in British fiction — entertaining, provocative and original. Jake Wallis Simons will surely prove a name to remember.” –Beryl Bainbridge
What would it be like to live — literally — into your own family’s past? What would it be like to watch everyone around you slowly getting younger? What would it be like to be a Tibetan Jew?
The Exiled Times of a Tibetan Jew is a startlingly original tragicomedy based around a fictional Tibeto-Jewish refugee community in London.
The novel is peopled with a variety of absurd yet always human characters, from an old, silent grandfather who communicates only via a typewriter, to a half-Tibetan chain smoker, to a skinny brothel mistress, to a charismatic Tibetan “rabbi” who declares himself to be the reincarnation of Moses. This world provides a rich and thought-provoking backdrop for an investigation into culture, heritage and identity that will make you swing between vigorous chuckles and troubled chin-stroking. Read the first page
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