The Rescue Man, by Anthony Quinn
The Other Side of the Stars, by Clemency Burton-Hill
When journalists venture into no man’s land and begin writing fiction, they do so in the knowledge that it could all get a bit messy. It’s not long before the sound of grinding axes start up. So it’s a pleasant surprise to find two hacks emerging from the fray relatively unscathed. With The Rescue Man, Anthony Quinn, the Independent’s film critic, has taken Liverpool’s blitz during the second world war as the backdrop to a unusual tale of betrayal and obsession. In a city where faith and alcohol ferment on the waterfront, historian Tom Baines is a man with a more idiosyncratic passion: architecture. As the Luftwaffe pursues its whistle-stop tour of the skyline, Tom finds ‘his mind’s eye clouded with ashes and rubble’.
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