Enough reading to last ……..
BLACK OVER BILL’S MOTHER’S
It’s 1942 and a Birmingham girl has a one night stand with a black GI. Nine months later she has twins – one black, one white. This is their story, and that of their rival, an Irish lad who dances with the devil in the form of the IRA.
Police, gangsters, bikers, terrorism, historical events and an epic, twisting plot that spans four decades, taking the reader from the streets of Birmingham and Worcester, to Ireland, New York, California and Cyprus.
Grounded in Birmingham and packed with local language and locations, this is a Brummie book with UK appeal by Brummie authors Michael Layton and Stephen Burrows.
Set predominantly in the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies, in Birmingham, Ireland, New York and California, Black Over Bill’s Mother’s is a huge dose of nostalgia, history and culture. A fast – moving and gripping story of a family falling apart, featuring police, Hells Angels and gangs in a struggle for supremacy.
The plot winds through five decades before a gripping conclusion full of twists and turns.Incorporating genuine historical events and locations, imbued with Brummie language, police slang, music and culture of the times, this book is in the tradition of Peaky Blinders, and could be the next generation.
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PRETTY THING
An intriguing mystery beginning in the early 1970’s. A story of sexual awakening, betrayal and cultural conflict, entwined with David Bowie’s rise to stardom.
Alice, a world-weary woman, meets a stranger in the park. She is the scarred survivor of failed relationships, none of which have ever measured up to her first love, Danny. The stranger attracts, but is there any future with him, and why is he so mysterious?
Christmas 1972. Alice meets Danny, a shy and beautiful boy at the youth club disco. They fall in love with all the intensity of ‘first love’. Then Danny sees an orange-haired, sexually ambiguous Bowie perform ‘Starman’ on ‘Top Of The Pops’ and becomes obsessed with ‘Ziggy Stardust’. But is it just the music, or the sexual challenge that Bowie presents, that attracts? Danny embarks on a personal journey to find his true self that leads him into ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll’, the orbit of a rising star, and a darker life.
Meanwhile, David Jones, as ‘Ziggy Stardust’, is progressing along the path to stardom. When he bursts upon the public, it shatters convention, blasting the grey early 70’s world away in a riot of glitter, ‘glam’ and trashed sexual boundaries. Nothing will ever be the same again. For him, Danny or Alice…..
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KEEP RIGHT ON
Within the world of warring football clans in the hot summer of 1976, something stirs – an unlikely love between a young couple on opposing sides.
1976. Birmingham. Aston Villa and Birmingham City football clubs are both in the First Division. They are old rivals, whose hooligan ‘football firms’ are locked in a vicious struggle for supremacy. Two criminal families, The Murphys and the Carters, control the firms, and they hate each other. But love crosses the boundaries between them, setting off a tragic chain of events. Can it prevail over the violence?
Corrupt cop Rob Docker returns, and this time he wants revenge.In the background, the National Front fight on the streets, racism is on the rise, and it’s the hottest summer in living memory.
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THE TOUCH OF INNOCENCE
Docker is back! Corrupt and ruthless Detective, Rob Docker, gets enmeshed in the evil world of paedophiles, and has to fight for his own survival in the only way he knows, by making his own rules.
‘The Touch of Innocence’ is much more than a novel – it is a hard-hitting and grittily realistic indictment of the damage caused by possibly the worst crime of all – child abuse.
Based on a true experiences, ‘The Touch of Innocence’, a work of historical crime fiction, tells the explosive story of the consequences of society failing to carry out its duty of care to protect children.
Set in the West Midlands, Warwickshire and Worcestershire areas in the 1970s, the story tackles the disturbing subject of ‘paedophile rings’ operating through the prism of children in care. Corruption is rife and the guilty are protected by powerful and shadowy forces from the highest levels of society. Nothing and no-one are as they seem.
Above all, this a story where the lines between good and evil are constantly blurred, victims and perpetrators are at times hard to define, and some pay the ultimate price for their actions.
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