MixedFinancial Times (UK)This is a thinly disguised polemic. But Proof tries to cover for itself by putting every character up for ridicule, not just the bloodsucking factional Tory right ... And Coe captures some moments well in his famous set pieces: the queue to see the Queen lying in state resonates. But a particular tirade from one of the younger characters—about the unfairness of the housing market, the election of Trump, Brexit, the broken social contract between young and old—could have been found in The Guardian opinion pages in the 2010s. The result is a chronologically discordant universe ... It is a shame that the intellectual scaffolding of Proof is so flimsy ... Because within the tedious polemic there is a great whodunnit. It is almost worth enduring Proof’s tawdry politics for it alone. Coe knows how to write a novel: it is well paced, he makes complex plots look easy, he has a way of marshalling a large cast of characters that never feels contrived, the prose is pleasant and not invasive, and he is—rare for a novelist—funny. But Coe’s skills are thwarted by Proof’s anti-establishment foot stomping.
