Publisher's Weekly Review
The scents of regret and squandered promise suffuse this well-crafted crime novel, about a group of senior Glaswegians attempting to make amends for past sins, from May (Entry Island). In 1965, they drove a stolen van to Swinging London to pursue dreams of pop stardom. Fifty years later, a small news item about a murder-of the fugitive prime suspect in a 1965 slaying, himself long presumed dead-draws together the group: the dying disbarred solicitor Maurie and one-time bandmates Jack and Dave (with Jack's depressed 22-year-old grandson, Ricky, as their driver), who all make a return trip to unmask the real killer. Deftly switching between the present and their previous journey, when the teens stumbled into the epicenter of the London scene as houseguests of well-connected but creepy Dr. Robert, May gradually reveals the expanding ripples of his story and the submerged horrors lying below. Like Ricky, the reader slowly comes to an appreciation of the still-passionate people obscured by old age and infirmity-but it's a sobering trip not everyone will want to make. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Review
Aye, over here, young fella. Didn't notice me sitting here, did you? Did I ever tell you aboot the time me and my four mates headed up to London from Glasgow? That was in the Sixties, way before your time. We were all 17, in a band, and had visions of the Beatles dancing in our heads. Actually, we didna know our G-clefs from our Y-fronts, but that didn stop us-at least not for a while. We slept rough or not at all, saw Bob Dylan behind the Savoy Hotel, and John Lennon himself may even have told us hello. Then it all went sour, and three of us returned home. Those were memories we dined on for the next 50 years. Then, after all that time, the remnants of the group (one of our gang had terminal cancer) returned to London to try to clear us a murder and our various messes. Verdict For those who remember the Sixties, but aren't sure if they've taken their meds today, this tale of two nostalgia trips is for them; for others, it might seem akin to taking a road trip through unfamiliar terrain with their Uncle Pete, if it's kept in mind that Uncle Pete is a crackerjack storyteller. Still, readers who enjoyed May's acclaimed "Lewis Trilogy" may want this stand-alone.-Bob Lunn, Kansas City, MO © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.