Ten top books set in London

Malcolm Burgess is the publisher of Oxygen Books' City-Lit series, featuring writing on cities including Berlin, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Venice and Dublin.

For the Guardian, in 2011 he named ten of the best books set in London, including:

Sukhdhev Sandhu, Night Haunts, 2006

London from the air at night has its own special beauty, as Sukdhev Sandhu discovers when he accompanies those who patrol the city's skies between nightfall and dawn.

"The streets of London are made from gold. But only at night time and only from the sky. They lie there glimmering like a Hatton Garden window display. Jewelled necklaces winking at us. At Piccadilly Circus and along Oxford Street the refracted neon gives them a ruby-red and emerald-green lustre."

Read about another book on the list.

Also see: Five otherworldly reads set in London; Five top books on London; and Five novels on the spirit and history of London.

--Marshal Zeringue