It's here! Browse the 2024 Penguin Christmas gift guide
Jumpin' Jack Flash

Jumpin' Jack Flash

David Litvinoff and the Rock’n’Roll Underworld

Summary

'REVELATORY' - DAILY TELEGRAPH *****
'FASCINATING' - OBSERVER
'ENGROSSING' - DAILY MAIL

'You’ll worry at your hunger to keep on reading, but you won’t be able to stop' - GUARDIAN, Book of the Year

David Litvinoff was one of the great mythic characters of ‘60s London.

Flitting between the worlds of music, art and crime, he exerted a hidden influence that helped create the Krays twins’ legend, connected the Rolling Stones with London’s dark side, shaped the plot of classic film Performance – and saw him immortalised in a portrait by Lucian Freud.

Litvinoff’s determination to live without trace means that his life has always eluded biographers, until now. Intent on unravelling the enigma of Litvinoff, Keiron Pim conducted 100 interviews over five years, speaking to Eric Clapton and Marianne Faithfull, James Fox and ‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser. The result is an extraordinary feat of research that traces a rogue’s progress amongst aristocrats, gangsters and rock stars.

Reviews

  • You’ll worry at your hunger to keep on reading, but you won’t be able to stop.
    Guardian, Book of the Year

About the author

Keiron Pim

Keiron Pim is aged 38, married with three young daughters and lives in Norwich, where he was for a decade the literary editor of the Eastern Daily Press newspaper before leaving to concentrate on writing books. He is the author of The Bumper Book of Dinosaurs (Square Peg) and he edited and introduced Into the Light: the Medieval Hebrew Poetry of Meir of Norwich, the first translated edition of England’s only major medieval Hebrew poet.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more