Crimes of Others

The long, hot summer holidays of 1975. Two boys are playing in the fields near their estate. One of them is attacked. One gets away. Andrew, the one that got away, is instrumental in a local misfit being blamed and convicted of the crime. Only later, as he grows to adulthood, does he realise that a great injustice has been done, and is determined to find the real attacker, at whatever cost to himself. Crimes of Others blends the literary coming-of-age novel with crime fiction. It deals with themes such as mental health, bullying, criminality, outsiders, addiction, family dynamics, childhood, first love, and principally - justice. It questions whether, as we mature in life, we can finally leave our early fears and pain behind, and become the person we want, and need, to be. (Note: the opening third of this book is identical to that of my novel The Grass Below, but in this alternate version, the action takes place wholly in the 1970s through to the mid-eighties, and to the point Andrew (named Alex in The Grass Below) traverses the threshold into adulthood. The remaining two-thirds comprise a new and re-imagined narrative following the crime that took place in 1975)