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Lying on a lounger outside a flyblown café in Naples, Mike reflects on the last few cathartic months. With his marriage in free-fall, he'd set off to visit the charismatic Al, who'd founded a closed community in the Calder Valley and, in his late 60s, was getting married. Three months later, Mike's wearing a white robe, and standing over an open grave.

Alan Newcombe vividly immerses us in the community of Gritstone House. There's no electricity or running water-they want no contact with the outside world. There's Edith, the bride, who tells Mike secrets she daren't reveal to Al. There's Helmut the goatherd who may have burnt down his parent's house. And who was Asif whose mandalas are in every room?

And there's Al. He once managed a boyband, worked for the Sandinistas, massacred a logging gang in the Amazon, and was a millionaire city broker. He says he's left his buccaneering past behind. But Mike discovers Al pulls all the strings in a house where there's identity fraud, secret burials, and clandestine murder.

Gothic and serious, yet brimming with wit and dark humour, Gritstone is an impressive debut that you won't be able to put down.