Suddenly, she started speaking, making him jump, but he wasn’t entirely sure her words were directed at him: “I’m a whore, I am. I’m a murderer. They’re coming for me, you know. They’re going to hang me.” It was all said in a fearful rush between rasping gasps and made not a jot of sense to Rayne.*They all went off to active service together: Vinney and his closest friends Pete and Alfie, but only Alfie came back in one piece. Vinney, Rayne’s eldest brother, was killed and Pete is locked up in Peddleton Mental Hospital. What is it that binds his silence and imposes an apparently self-deceptive paralysis?For a nine-year old boy growing up in a remote seaside town in a close-knit community and within a loving family should be easy. But two children are missing and an unexplained death is written off as accidental. What is Alfie Borne, a Korean War veteran, doing in an old unused warehouse and why is he constantly threatening Rayne? And there’s something wrong with Rayne’s favourite Aunt. No one will adequately explain her behaviour to him. What are they hiding from him?As family secrets are laid bare and events in the small community spiral out of control, Rayne is forced to rapidly take on extra years and evaluate his priorities. Consequently, he is destined never to forget the summer of 1956.
Suddenly, she started speaking, making him jump, but he wasn’t entirely sure her words were directed at him: “I’m a whore, I am. I’m a murderer. They’re coming for me, you know. They’re going to hang me.” It was all said in a fearful rush between rasping gasps and made not a jot of sense to Rayne.*They all went off to active service together: Vinney and his closest friends Pete and Alfie, but only Alfie came back in one piece. Vinney, Rayne’s eldest brother, was killed and Pete is locked up in Peddleton Mental Hospital. What is it that binds his silence and imposes an apparently self-deceptive paralysis?For a nine-year old boy growing up in a remote seaside town in a close-knit community and within a loving family should be easy. But two children are missing and an unexplained death is written off as accidental. What is Alfie Borne, a Korean War veteran, doing in an old unused warehouse and why is he constantly threatening Rayne? And there’s something wrong with Rayne’s favourite Aunt. No one will adequately explain her behaviour to him. What are they hiding from him?As family secrets are laid bare and events in the small community spiral out of control, Rayne is forced to rapidly take on extra years and evaluate his priorities. Consequently, he is destined never to forget the summer of 1956.
