If you’ve been kind enough to read one or both of my previous two efforts – thank you very much. Equally, I can promise that The End of the Pier is nothing like either of them. So here it is. The paperback version has the orange foreground and the Kindle version has the yellow band.
That could be a good thing or not, but, either way it’s third time lucky, as we say in the Booker prize judging committee.
This story is not about piers as such. They are just a metaphor for where a couple of comedians might end up at the end of their careers.
Back in the 1970s comedy duos were very much the thing, and with only three TV channels to choose from, we saw quite a lot of them.
However, performing at the end of a pier is not a fate that befalls our two. But much more serious things do. The story traces the heights and depths of one of them in particular. Let’s just say the London Palladium, one of the capital’s largest theatres features, as does a Spanish gaol.
However it is also the story of this man’s wife. She starts out as just that, but becomes more important as things unfold. And as they do she becomes convinced she has committed two serous sins of omission. Not doing something when she should have. Lives are lost. Was it instinctive behaviour or did she really mean those terrible things to happen as a result of her inaction? Are we all guilty of occasional lapses that we know will have serious consequences? Probably.
And then there’s the strange matter of a man who might have murdered himself. Or not. No one can really say.