Exit 39

by Russell James

An up-to-the-minute tragicomedy narrated into an iPhone by Crosby Ravensworth, a 35-year-old executive too busy to scatter his father’s ashes, or to sort out the dysfunctional family he has left behind, or even to decide which of the four women in his life he should connect to.His father has committed suicide and the funeral is the first time for five years that Crosby meets any of his uneasy family – his stepmother (who never accepted him), his stepbrother (a priest), his half-sister (a businesswoman always on the phone like Crosby) and his youngest half-brother (out of work). Crosby leaves with a sealed box of his father’s papers, a last letter and the knowledge that, as executor, he is to scatter his father’s ashes at a quiet location in the Lake District. When he has time.But what with his girlfriend thinking marriage, an ex-girlfriend thinking they should try again, a potential new love in America and his frantic business trips around Britain, as well as to Venice, Philadelphia and California, it seems everything conspires against him – or does it? Because, with any luck, even the darkest clouds have silver linings and this could be the beginning of a new life.

198 pages, Paperback

First published October 29, 2013

About the author

A British author of some 2 dozen books, half of which are crime novels, Russell is an ex-chairman of the Crime Writers Association. He has written several non-fiction works and half a dozen historical novels. He is currently working on the third book in his Croome Victorian saga, the first of which is AFTER SHE DROWNED, telling of forbidden love in the Victorian Church, and the second THE CAPTAIN'S WARD, telling of a young girl's coming of age in Victorian Britain.