Journalists, it has to be said, don't always make good novelists. Some certainly do (Terry Stisatny is a recent fine example) but I'm afraid I don’t think the same can be said of Aleaxander Starritt and I really didn't get on with The Beast. It is intended as a satire of an unscrupulous, bigoted and bombastic tabloid newspaper whose staff indulge in all kinds of horrendous practices to twist, distort and outright lie in order to create stories which will outrage their supposedly bigoted readership, boost circulation and shift the mood of the country. Starritt has lived and worked in that world, so it's possibly an accurate (or at least semi-accurate) picture of what goes on, but as satire, or even a readable story, I found it sadly lacking.

The present-day story is set in the fictional newspaper from Evelyn Waugh's Scoop, but there the comparison ends. Where Waugh is witty and scalpel sharp, I found Starritt plodding, unfunny and very, very predictable. This isn't a new area for satire (especially following the News International phone-hacking scandal) and The Beast felt tired and unoriginal, with stock characters, rather a clunky feel and a story which is sordid and depressing without the necessary leaven of wit and clear-sighted originality which is essential in good satire. We get plenty of intricate detail of office politics which dilutes the central story further. Starritt even makes it obvious from the geography of The Beast's offices that it's really the Daily Mail; now the Mail may well deserve this sort of bashing, but here it just removes more of the subtlety required in such a book – and there wasn't much to start with.

I got thoroughly fed up with The Beast. I found it an increasing struggle to read, increasingly unpleasant and wholly unrelieved by the humour and satire I had hoped for. I'm sorry to be so critical, but that's the truth and I really can't recommend it.

(I received an ARC via NetGalley.)

This dark satire takes a cynical look at how popular press owners and editors can exploit their readers' prejudices and fear, and exposes what readers of other newspapers probably already believe is the pervading ethic guiding many editorial and news articles. "The Beast"'s depiction of England today is recognisable and not particularly pleasant.

This novel has a fast-paced and dark plot with comic undertones, is well-written and difficult to put down. It should be compulsory reading for fans of the newspapers it satirises.

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for providing me with this free copy.

The Beast is a compelling and at times horrifying novel about the modern tabloid press and how it exploits the nation’s fears and current events. Jeremy Underwood is a subeditor for The Daily Beast, which sees itself as the voice of Middle England, and when he comes back from holiday to spot two figures wearing burqas outside the newspaper offices, he sparks off a chain of events that he could have hardly imagined or planned. Fear is in the air as there are escaped suspects at large and The Beast needs a compelling story to keep its circulation up. Soon the staff are off to a secret bunker and the country is being divided by the story that Jeremy has set off.

Starritt’s novel is difficult to put down, partly due to the fast-paced narrative that feels akin to a film or feature-length drama, and partly due to the dark comedy as the events escalate, which carries with it a terrifying sense of observation. The author worked in a newsroom and The Beast’s one is described in careful detail, from its hierarchy to questionable working practices. His depiction shows the level of work ethic and rivalry that goes into making a newspaper, but also charts the way in which a single paper can affect national events and stoke fear and hatred. It is not entirely scathing, but is unlikely to appeal hugely to those who enjoy reading the kind of newspaper it depicts.

Though the book is Evelyn Waugh-esque (the name of the newspaper is the same as that in Waugh’s novel Scoop), its level of modern relevance makes it more horrifying and less light than reading Waugh today. Not only does it depict the media’s involvement in Islamophobia in Britain and look at how terror attacks might be reported, but it touches upon topics of press freedom, print vs online journalism, and how newspapers might make the news rather than report it. The fictional papers within the novel all have fairly obvious real life counterparts and the satire is pointed even for those who have little knowledge of modern journalism.

The Beast is a kind of escalating dark comedy that mostly tips into a tense and horrible narrative about tabloid reporting in relation to extremism and hatred in Britain today. Some readers will find it funny, but its lingering feel is one of exposition, an anatomy of a kind of newspaper that many people read and devour and many others loathe.