Set in post war Leeds, a young boy's world is turned upside down when a local man is hanged for a crime he didn't commit. A crime that goes to the heart of everything he believes in.
This could have been such a great read. It's nostalgic, the main characters are well written and the main story is enough for any reader to get their teeth into. But unfortunately this book commits the ultimate crime that has befallen many a book over the years. It tries to be too many things. For some reason the author didn't seem to have a lot of faith in his story (which was good by the way) and the story ends up going off into all kinds of strange directions.
For some reason he throws a rape storyline into the mix as well as a bizarre car chase and then an even more bizarre dead body in the back of a car and caps it all off with a mining disaster! Not to mention a couple of murders and the main character waking up to find a dead boy hanging at the end of his bed! There's too much going on in such a short book that it well and truly borders on the ridiculous at times. And the frustrating thing is that the main storyline is very good and didn't need everything that I've just mentioned.
I fell in love with the main characters and the main storyline was gripping and had everything that a reader would want. But sadly a good book has been ruined by going off into too many crazy tangents. It made the whole book unrealistic.
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