The Silent Brother

 

The Silent Brother- Simon Van der Velde- Crime

Tommy lives with his mother and her erstwhile -sometimes there partner Daryl in a less than salubrious part of town. Tommy talks to his brother Benji whom Daryl insists isn't there and never was. Tommy has a huge guilt that Benji not being there is his fault but he can't quite work out why. Every 1st August Tommy and his mother go on a train ride to post a card to Benji, care of a social worker, whom the card is addressed to. The book takes us through Tommys life from being a child to an adult. When fetching  (yet more) cider for his mother one day, he rescues Annie who is shoplifting and a friendship begins. Later in life Tommy finds the easiest road to survive as does Annie. A story of hardship told with grit and one that pulls no punches.

This is a cleverly written book and one that despite the deprivation had me in tears at the end- so tenderly is this written. It's one from the heart from both angles and as Simon says at the end, living at that time in that area took quite something to survive. A tale of valience and even a little romance. Brilliant descriptions, tenacious characters and a story never to be forgotten. 

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The Silent Brother - Blurb:  

When his beloved little brother is stolen away, five-year-old Tommy Farrier is left alone with his alcoholic mam, his violent step-dad and his guilt.  Too young to understand what has really happened, Tommy is sure of only one thing.  He is to blame.

Tommy tries to be good, to live-up to his brother’s increasingly hazy memory, but trapped in a world of shame and degradation he grows up with just two options; poverty or crime.  And crime pays.

Or so he thinks.

A teenage drug-dealer for the vicious Burns gang, Tommy’s life is headed for disaster, until, in the place he least expects, Tommy sees a familiar face…

And then things get a whole lot worse

The Silent Brother is my debut crime novel, published on 16^th June, 2022 by Northodox Press.  (blurb below)

 

Set mostly in the east end of Newcastle, in the recent past, The Silent Brother follows Tommy Farrier through his traumatic childhood, to his coming of age as a drug-dealer in search of redemption.

 

Just like Backstories, The Silent Brother doesn’t pull its punches.  This is a book that seeks to tell it how it is, so be warned, this is very uncozy crime.  There’s nothing gratuitous.  I’m not interested in that.  But where there’s passion, you’ll feel it, and where there’s danger, you’ll be frightened.  So if you want gut-wrenching passion, social and emotional honesty, psychological insight and characters to fall in love with, all tied up with a breathless, hundred miles an hour climax, then this might be for you?