Colossal rats invade from the town belt.

Your rent is going up but everyone is calling it a summer of love.

Cryptic posters appear around Wellington inciting people to join an evening of mayhem.

Until now the rats have contented themselves with scraps. But as summer heats up and the cost of living skyrockets, we can no longer ignore that our friends are seeking their own rung on the property ladder.

Rat King Landlord is the first novel by Murdoch Stephens. He has previously published a book on the campaign he founded to double New Zealand's refugee quota: Doing Our Bit: the campaign to double the quota (BWB Texts, 2018).

"Stephens takes us on a thrilling, surreal, often hilarious ride through a series of staccato chapters each snowballing into the next as mayhem descends upon (or is it rises up from?) the capital, culminating in a heart-thudding climax." – Alec Redvers-Hill, Newsroom.

"Rat King Landlord is written for us, the undergraduate renter. The conditions and possibilities of full land ownership reform are one rat sentience away." – Josie Adams, The Spinoff.

"Satisfying satire – mad, fast-paced and audacious." – Stella Chrysostomou, Volume books.