What a marvellous piece of writing this is. A compelling, moving, well-crafted and beautifully-written novel about the decline and fall of Jimmy Devlin, a young man trying to survive in the bleak and unforgiving landscape of the Fens in 1954. For a year we follow him as he takes any work he can get, even if that means becoming involved with petty crooks and conmen and sinking deeper into trouble. He has no prospects, no hope for a better life. Even in the best of times, this harsh area of England is a difficult place to live, and these aren’t the best of times. A severe flood the year before has only complicated matters for all the inhabitants, and any idea of kindness or generosity has gone out the window. Edric’s characterisation is spot-on and Jimmy Devlin is quite unforgettable. An excellent novel and one I heartily recommend.

The east of England in the summer of 1954. Jimmy Devlin, aged 30, lives off his wits in a peripatetic hand-to-mouth existence, finding work and money wherever it comes. Following the disastrous floods of 1953, he gets work in building up sea defences and improving drainage along the coast and meets a variety of unsavoury characters that, like him, live at the very margins of society, most often falling into criminality and deception. Devlin is not as sharp as he thinks he is and descends into a vortex of crime and personal danger in the local criminal community. “Honour among thieves” is a code that does not seem to apply to 1950s Lincolnshire and as Devlin looks to exact revenge on those who have wronged him, he gets even more entrapped in the web of illegality. Each time he feels that he is beginning to settle in a place and occupation, then events serve to turf him out and he becomes unwanted.
Robert Edric’s historical fiction novels are usually staffed by unsavoury, marginal characters and the tone is not terribly uplifting. This story is no exception, and it shows an almost Hobbesian dog-eat-dog battle for survival. But it is well written and superbly researched. The language and feel of the desolate eastern edge of rural England in the still austere times following the end of the Second World War is wonderfully well rendered.

This is my first Robert Edric book and I really liked the synopsis of the story...............unfortunately for me this book just didn't go anywhere. Its a sorry tale of a man who is basically feral. There doesn't seem to be anything behind it more than that, its his story of all of the misdemeanours he accrued during a few months in the early 50s.

It wasn't for me, I kept going with it hoping for something to happen but alas no. It is well written (hence the two stars) but not my cup of tea.