BELOW THE STRANDLINE

In Parr’s debut thriller, a 16-year-old seeks revenge in the grim and gritty London of the 1970s, where a wealthy secret society pulls the strings.

Neglected by his alcoholic mother, Jerry is brought up in a series of abusive, temporary homes. He grows up to be an intelligent but physically and mentally scarred teenager who feels morally bound to avenge the wrongs perpetrated against him. For example, he puts a teacher who beat him into a freezing marsh grave, and he burns down the house of the foster family who put him out on the street. After fellow street urchins assault and rob him, he force-feeds one of them a cocktail of drugs and robs him in kind. However, the cruelest people in the city operate behind the scenes: dirty cops and members of a secret society called the Firm, led by the aging, gout-riddled Sir Peter, a former British Intelligence operative. The Firm uses blackmail and murder to enrich themselves and includes the mantislike Vicar, who was one of Jerry’s worst abusers. Parr is adept at portraying his fictional world’s most unpleasant elements. Jerry, for example, is introduced to readers as a bawling, forgotten child left in his own filth—a heart-rending tableau that the author captures in all its grimy particulars. He uses this same attention to bring the flophouses and seedy clubs of ’70s London to life. His secondary characters are similarly well drawn; Jerry’s street-wise love interest, Scarlet, is as charmingly self-aware of her flaws as he is. A trio of schoolmates, introduced early on, are compelling in their banality, but they unfortunately disappear midnovel. Similarly, DI Jack Drummond and savvy Detective Constable Janice Morgan give law enforcement a human face, but they feel a little too separated from Jerry’s story. That said, there are worse things than leaving readers wanting more, and they’ll find it hard to leave Parr’s grim story behind.

A rough novel that’s as engrossing as it is bleak.