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Beneath the Streets
Beneath the Streets | Adam Macqueen
2 posts | 2 read | 5 to read
When Jeremy Thorpe hired thugs to kill his ex-lover, they botched it. What if they had succeeded? A breathtaking, heartbreaking thriller Jake Arnott It is February 1976, and the naked corpse of a shockingly underage rent boy is fished out of a pond on Hampstead Heath. Since the police dont seem to care, twenty-year-old Tommy Wildeblood himself a former Dilly boy prostitute finds himself investigating. Dodging murderous Soho hoodlums and the agents of a more sinister power, Tommy uncovers another, even more shocking crime: the Liberal leader and likely next Home Secretary, Jeremy Thorpe, has had his former male lover executed on Exmoor and got clean away with it. Now the trail of guilt seems to lead higher still, and a ruthless Establishment will stop at nothing to cover its tracks. In a gripping thriller whose cast of real-life characters includes Prime Minister Harold Wilson, his senior adviser Lady Falkender, gay Labour peer Tom Driberg and the investigative journalist Paul Foot, Adam Macqueen plays what if with Seventies political history with a sting in the tail that reminds us that the truth can be just as chilling as fiction. A fucking fantastic read. A gripping what-if thriller, packed with vivid period detail and page-turning twists. To find myself actually making an appearance in the final chapter was just cream on the cake Tom Robinson
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CarolynM
Beneath the Streets | Adam Macqueen
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It's London, 1976, when ex rent boy Tommy Wildeblood is mistaken for the private detective he does shady jobs for, leading him into an investigation that threatens the political elite. This is a cracking thriller that is a fictionalised take on the Jeremy Thorpe scandal, using real names for all the public figures involved. It also does a great job of evoking the era & the seedy side of London. I enjoyed it a lot. Might be up your alley @TrishB ?

TrishB Stacked 👍🏻 it does sound right up my street. There is a second one too. 2y
CarolynM @TrishB I downloaded the second one as soon as I finished this😁 2y
TrishB That‘s always a good recommendation 😁 2y
CarolynM @TrishB I also did a lot of googling! I'd not heard of a few of the politicians mentioned - Tom Driberg, in particular, has a fascinating Wikipedia entry. 2y
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Minervasbutler
Beneath the Streets | Adam Macqueen
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Excellent debut novel, a thriller set in 1976 London based loosely around the notorious "Thorpe Affair". For non-Brits, Jeremy Thorpe was the "flamboyant" (nudge nudge, wink wink) leader of the Liberal Party in the 1970s who was tried for conspiracy to murder his lover Norman Scott. MacQueen takes real historical personages and rewrites them into a gripping thriller which perfectly recaptures the grimy essence of mid-seventies London.

Bookzombie This sounds good! I know there was a movie with Hugh Grant called A Very English Scandal that I sounded interesting. (edited) 4y
Minervasbutler @Bookzombie yes, that was excellent and stuck closely to real events. This is far more fictionalized but still great. 4y
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