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Dead End
A past secret revealed. A search for a long-lost child. Murder and mayhem on the south coast of Spain.
A compelling tale of teenage romance and disappointment, of heartbreak and sadness, greed and tragedy, about a father's devotion and a man's courage; and the consequences of mixing with the wrong people.
Will the foppish Matthew Crawford find his daughter in time and rescue her from menacing drug dealers and ruthless politicians on the Costa del Sol?
Pick up your copy of Daniel Pascoe's brilliant, amusing and ultimately thrilling coming-of-age story to find out right away.
A compelling tale of teenage romance and disappointment, of heartbreak and sadness, greed and tragedy, about a father's devotion and a man's courage; and the consequences of mixing with the wrong people.
Will the foppish Matthew Crawford find his daughter in time and rescue her from menacing drug dealers and ruthless politicians on the Costa del Sol?
Pick up your copy of Daniel Pascoe's brilliant, amusing and ultimately thrilling coming-of-age story to find out right away.
Paperback
Published January 1, 2016
3 people want to read
About the author
Daniel Pascoe
8 books1 followerDaniel Pascoe was brought up in London in the nineteen-fifties and sent away to boarding school at 13. He had always wanted to be a doctor and trained in St Bartholomew’s Hospital. After a couple of post-graduate degrees, he worked as a cancer specialist the north-east of England for thirty years. Now retired he spends much of his time writing, far from the hubbub of city life, enjoying peaceful periods of contemplation and sometime playing the most golf.
Constantly on the look-out for opportunities for pensive introspection, he likes fiction-writing for its distinct contrast; and its way of setting its own rules and telling its version of the truth. He uses the novel as a means of seeking honest explanations. He started writing stories at prep school, filling school notebooks with scribbled lines of nonsense, graduating to his father’s portable typewriter in his teens, still never quite completing anything. So, it has not been until much later with more time and experience to draw on, that he has tried to succeed in a world that has always fascinated him, creative and literary writing.
Literary heroes from the past include Alexandre Dumas, Charles Dickens, Daphne Du Maurier, Somerset Maughan and HE Bates. In the contemporary world, the greatest novelists of our times, John le Carre, Cormac McCarthy and Hilary Mantel would be joined by favourite historical novelist, Dorothy Dunnett. But there are so many great authors to be found: Edna O’Brien, Salmon Rushdie, Sarah Waters, Ian McEwan, to name but a few.
His efforts have all been self-published in one way or the other, having not yet found a literary agent supportive of his hybrid mix of literary and commercial writing. His novels are filled with well-drawn characters and the action often slow-burns before running headlong without stopping to dramatic often violent conclusions.
He lives with his family on Teesside. The aim is to write during the dull winter months and read and research and play golf and walk the dogs during the summer, but actually he tends to be writing the whole time now, with a number of different projects on the go at the same time. Fortunately, the two dogs are small and fluffy and a couple of turns around the kitchen island is usually enough. One day he hopes to find an agent to help him propel his career into new and exciting areas.
Constantly on the look-out for opportunities for pensive introspection, he likes fiction-writing for its distinct contrast; and its way of setting its own rules and telling its version of the truth. He uses the novel as a means of seeking honest explanations. He started writing stories at prep school, filling school notebooks with scribbled lines of nonsense, graduating to his father’s portable typewriter in his teens, still never quite completing anything. So, it has not been until much later with more time and experience to draw on, that he has tried to succeed in a world that has always fascinated him, creative and literary writing.
Literary heroes from the past include Alexandre Dumas, Charles Dickens, Daphne Du Maurier, Somerset Maughan and HE Bates. In the contemporary world, the greatest novelists of our times, John le Carre, Cormac McCarthy and Hilary Mantel would be joined by favourite historical novelist, Dorothy Dunnett. But there are so many great authors to be found: Edna O’Brien, Salmon Rushdie, Sarah Waters, Ian McEwan, to name but a few.
His efforts have all been self-published in one way or the other, having not yet found a literary agent supportive of his hybrid mix of literary and commercial writing. His novels are filled with well-drawn characters and the action often slow-burns before running headlong without stopping to dramatic often violent conclusions.
He lives with his family on Teesside. The aim is to write during the dull winter months and read and research and play golf and walk the dogs during the summer, but actually he tends to be writing the whole time now, with a number of different projects on the go at the same time. Fortunately, the two dogs are small and fluffy and a couple of turns around the kitchen island is usually enough. One day he hopes to find an agent to help him propel his career into new and exciting areas.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 10, 2017
Beautifully written but fundamentally flawed
This novel is extraordinarily well written. The author’s descriptive powers are to be admired as he can paint a full picture in just a few wonderfully turned sentences. However, there is a caveat. I, like many readers, enjoy being drawn into a book and take huge pleasure in getting lost in the story. It jars therefore and totally disrupts the flow when a glaring error appears on the page.
The Book Guild Ltd is as far as I am aware a UK publisher based in Leicestershire. I might be able to forgive a few Americanisms – “prize off” instead of “prise off”; “fulfill” rather than “fulfil” but I can not for one moment allow the slang use of “the John” at a British public school, “site” instead of “sight”, “it’s” rather than “its”, “sake” instead of “slake” and “discretely” instead of “discreetly”. The proof reader should be sent to his room without dinner. Ironically two of these jarring errors come shortly before the father berates his daughter for the incorrect use of an objective pronoun. The writing is otherwise superb and I suspect that the author will not be best pleased that these mistakes have been allowed to slip through. They hugely spoiled my enjoyment and affected the star rating.
Matthew Crawford is a widower; his beloved wife Rachel having died before our story begins. On the occasion of his daughter’s wedding breakfast he regales family and friends with the usual father of the bride speech with a kicker at the end when he tells everyone that he fathered a daughter at the age of 17 and has never met his first-born. His quest now is to find her.
Leaving aside the question as to whether a loving father would steal the limelight from his newly married daughter the speech and related events took around 50 pages and despite all pages being beautifully descriptive I started to get bored. Furthermore, the start of Matthew’s search did not begin until over a third of the way into the story. I believe in scene setting but this was excessive. However, as someone the same age as the main protagonist, the passages related to the awkwardness associated with getting to know the opposite sex chimed so well that I reread this section. It was very nostalgic and brilliantly evocative of that rites of passage time everyone experiences.
Matthew’s long lost daughter Sophie is in big trouble having upset just about everyone she could. They are important local people in Marbella – crooked politicians, drug smugglers and gangsters. I have two main issues with this, the second half, of the novel. Anyone who knows they are in that kind of trouble who has acquired an obscene amount of cash would disappear so it’s not credible that she would stay and try to talk her way out of her dilemma.
The other issue though is far more fundamental. To enjoy a book the reader needs to associate with or feel for some of the main protagonists. Sophie deserved to be dropped into the harbour with concrete boots and no-one would miss her. Her father, Matthew, is a cardboard cut-out character without personality or any redeeming features.
This novel is beautifully written but unfortunately fundamentally flawed. Despite this the author has huge talent and I shall look out for other offerings of his.
mr zorg
Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.
This novel is extraordinarily well written. The author’s descriptive powers are to be admired as he can paint a full picture in just a few wonderfully turned sentences. However, there is a caveat. I, like many readers, enjoy being drawn into a book and take huge pleasure in getting lost in the story. It jars therefore and totally disrupts the flow when a glaring error appears on the page.
The Book Guild Ltd is as far as I am aware a UK publisher based in Leicestershire. I might be able to forgive a few Americanisms – “prize off” instead of “prise off”; “fulfill” rather than “fulfil” but I can not for one moment allow the slang use of “the John” at a British public school, “site” instead of “sight”, “it’s” rather than “its”, “sake” instead of “slake” and “discretely” instead of “discreetly”. The proof reader should be sent to his room without dinner. Ironically two of these jarring errors come shortly before the father berates his daughter for the incorrect use of an objective pronoun. The writing is otherwise superb and I suspect that the author will not be best pleased that these mistakes have been allowed to slip through. They hugely spoiled my enjoyment and affected the star rating.
Matthew Crawford is a widower; his beloved wife Rachel having died before our story begins. On the occasion of his daughter’s wedding breakfast he regales family and friends with the usual father of the bride speech with a kicker at the end when he tells everyone that he fathered a daughter at the age of 17 and has never met his first-born. His quest now is to find her.
Leaving aside the question as to whether a loving father would steal the limelight from his newly married daughter the speech and related events took around 50 pages and despite all pages being beautifully descriptive I started to get bored. Furthermore, the start of Matthew’s search did not begin until over a third of the way into the story. I believe in scene setting but this was excessive. However, as someone the same age as the main protagonist, the passages related to the awkwardness associated with getting to know the opposite sex chimed so well that I reread this section. It was very nostalgic and brilliantly evocative of that rites of passage time everyone experiences.
Matthew’s long lost daughter Sophie is in big trouble having upset just about everyone she could. They are important local people in Marbella – crooked politicians, drug smugglers and gangsters. I have two main issues with this, the second half, of the novel. Anyone who knows they are in that kind of trouble who has acquired an obscene amount of cash would disappear so it’s not credible that she would stay and try to talk her way out of her dilemma.
The other issue though is far more fundamental. To enjoy a book the reader needs to associate with or feel for some of the main protagonists. Sophie deserved to be dropped into the harbour with concrete boots and no-one would miss her. Her father, Matthew, is a cardboard cut-out character without personality or any redeeming features.
This novel is beautifully written but unfortunately fundamentally flawed. Despite this the author has huge talent and I shall look out for other offerings of his.
mr zorg
Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.
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April 2, 2019BRILLIANT, AMUSING, INSIGHTFUL AND ULTIMATELY THRILLING.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews