Born Under Punches
ByPublisher Description
Today Coldwell is desolate, a crumbling town whose streets are lined with empty shops and populated by ghosts. Two decades ago, the city thrived on the back of a coal industry so powerful that in 1984, the union staged a strike intended to bring Britain to its knees. Instead the government broke the strike—breaking Coldwell along with it.
The effect is seen in five citizens of the town: a heroic footballer, a Dean Martin–obsessed thug, an increasingly desperate striking miner, a crusading journalist, and the reporter's troubled sister. As the story shifts between 1984 and 2001, it becomes clear that what was a political action in the mid-1980s caused permanent changes in the foundation of British life. The bodies buried in 1984 will not stay underground forever.
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About Martyn Waites
Martyn Waites (b. 1963) is an English actor and author of hard-boiled fiction. Raised in Newcastle upon Tyne, he spent his post-university years selling leather coats, working in pubs, and doing stand-up comedy. After a stint in drama school, Waites pursued life on the stage, performing regionally in theaters across England. TV and commercial work followed, and he continued to act fulltime until the early 1990s, when he began writing his first novel, a noir mystery set in his hometown.
was published in 1997, and Waites followed it with three more novels starring the same character, an investigative journalist named Stephen Larkin.
Since then Waites has divided his time between acting and writing. After concluding the Larkin series in 2003, he created another journalist protagonist, troubled reporter Joe Donovan, who made his first appearance in
. Waites’s most recent novel is
. Along with his wife and children, he lives and works in Hertfordshire, a county north of London.
Other books by Martyn Waites
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