Bailing Out : A Novel
Follow a kind, lonely heart astray along the most dangerous of paths.
Retirement from the police force and the accidental death of his wife have conspired to turn Don Percey’s world upside down and he is fumbling around in the dark. He finds himself at the most isolated, loneliest point in his life and yet, bizarrely, also at his wealthiest.
Resolved to do something exceptionally good, something genuinely noble, he becomes involved in the lives of a poor family from a run-down pocket of social housing ‒ with brutal consequences.
Bailing Out is a far cry from the offices of City banks but ripples from London are seen to radiate to the rural south-west of England. Set among both the affluence and the poverty of the area, there are elements of a whodunnit, of a fragile romance and of a family tragedy, entangled in a compelling story of generosity and judgement, of compassion and of risk.
When there is so much poverty around, why can’t a decent man be allowed to do something significant to help?
"MYSTERY AND MORAL DILEMMA IN 21st CENTURY WESSEX"
"A PRESENT-DAY DORSET STORY OF MYSTERY, ROMANCE AND A MINIBUS"
Although this story was the first extended piece of writing I completed since I retired from teaching, a revised version of it became my second published book in 2016, after Shillingstone Station. The development of Bailing Out from a novella in an experimental form to a more orthodox novel is covered in the Other Writings page.
Read an extract from the book, the novel’s early pages, by clicking the link below:
BAILING OUT early pages extract
To those of you who have read the whole book, the following appendix will make some sense.
To those still to finish the story, please delay clicking the link to the appendix until later as it includes spoilers.
