Synopsis – Barley Sugar
1950s London Crime Thriller with a romantic backstory
How much could you give up for someone you love? Not to have to give up someone you love?
Widow Deborah Coles is suffering a crisis of conscience about moving on with her life. When her 15 year old son, Lewis, finds himself in trouble with the police, she has little choice but to turn to her father in law for support.
Over the course of a weekend, career criminal, Francis Coles, proves an unorthodox educator, as he reveals the heartbreaking love story which has allowed their family to endure.
Reminiscing on his youth in 1950’s London, Francis’s tale is one of Teddy Boy gang fights, rock n roll romance in the dancehalls and daring heists, as he and his two best friends descend into a vicious world of vendetta, revenge and murder. Lewis listens and learns about the high price of survival, about how the trio – whilst maturing towards the prospect of fatherhood – would have their morality tested, and be forced to meet ever increasing stakes in order to protect not only their endeavours but also their relationships.
Deborah and Lewis will each inherit the family secrets, revelations which could reshape the way they look at love, loss and life.
A Rock n Roll Crime Thriller intertwined with 1950s Teddy Boys antics and larceny.
Book Excerpt
He was shorter than Lewis, stockier, the remnants of a black eye dirtying a fair headed face already too cynical for a boy of fifteen. ‘Oi, if I slip, this screwdriver is going straight into my nuts.’
‘If I was you, I’d keep hold of it while we’re running then,’ Lewis advised, retying the laces in his trainers. He handed Sammy a baseball cap with a pair of plastic gloves bunched up inside it, and then examined his own. The hat was fine, but the gloves … ‘They’re massive,’ he said, licking his fingers to peel them apart. ‘And there’s no left and right.’
Sammy laughed. ‘I got them out of one of them dispensers at Texaco.’ Lewis stared at him, baffled. ‘If you don’t want them, I got some football socks in my bag you can use.’
‘Socks…?’
Sammy forced the peak of his hat down as low as it would go, and then set about manoeuvring one of his sweaty palms into one of the oversized gloves. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘My uncle told me whenever he breaks into a house, if he ain’t got gloves, he goes straight for the sock drawer.’
