Big Sky - Softcover

Creer, Gareth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 186230095X ISBN 13: 9781862300958

Publisher: Anchor Books

Synopsis

A rising star in the firmament of British fiction, Gareth Creer's; Big Sky is narrated by a mute called Jimmy Mack. A good man who has to do bad things, he has spent his childhood in and out of children's homes. A kind of benign Fagin figure, he is the head of a family of similarly disaffected youths living on the North-East English coast. Surviving on a diet of petty crime, life is sweet enough until a bungled drug scam designed to rake in enough cash to set them up in Spain puts Jimmy perilously into the hands of Flint, the local mafia boss - and a woman. The pay off for trying to get a piece of the big time is that Flint dispatches them to Holland to deal with some unfinished business. And for the first time Jimmy finds that he is no longer in control. Seen through the eyes of the mild and likeable Jimmy, the action - some of it violent - is refracted through the lens of his own complicated past, and gradually a picture builds of a man who is desperate to find a sense of belonging. Shrugging off the conventions of countless drug-deal-gone-bad thrillers, Big Sky combines a seductive, almost poetic prose with a thrilling and utterly believable plot that drives the novel to its optimistic conclusion.

About this title

Review

‘A well-paced, ambitious crime novel, handled with sensitivity’ -- Independent

‘Ambitious and, in terms of British crime writing, original. It escapes the leaden plotting and ingratiating rhetoric of much hard-case literature’ -- The Times Literary Supplement

‘Amid the devilish plot twists Creer makes room to flesh out his principals most satisfyingly, and establish a page-blurring pace' -- Chris Power, The Times

‘Creer’s novel is rumbustiously entertaining' -- Ross Gilfillan, Daily Mail

About the Author

Gareth Creer
Gareth Creer grew up in Manchester and spent eight years working in the City. He gave up a lucrative career to commit himself to writing fulltime. He took the MA in Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam, and since October 1999 has been Writer in Residence at Leicester Prison in the Young Offenders unit. He is now also the Lecturer in Creative Writing at John Moore's University in Liverpool. He is the author of three novels, Skin and Bone, Cradle to Grave and Big Sky.

About this edition

• Publisher: Anchor Books
• ISBN 10: 186230095X
• ISBN 13: 9781862300958
• Binding: Paperback