Why a Booktrail?
1980s, 2000s: A Television scriptwriter takes you on a literary tour to some very dark places indeed..
Without Trace
What you need to know before your trail
Simon Booker is a debut author but he’s written many of the dramas you’ve seen on television. He’s written the Inspector Linley mysteries for one but if you think the novel might be along those lines, think again. Morgan Vine, the main character is a journalist by trade and who investigates crimes and miscarriages of justice. Touted to be a series, this is the first.
Danny Kilcannnon, a childhood friend of Morgan’s is in prison for killing his teenage stepdaughter four years previous. He is still in prison but Morgan is convinced he is innocent.
Morgan starts to investigate and Danny is released. But then Morgan’s own daughter goes missing…
Travel Guide
The main setting here is one of the (fictional) prison in Dungeness. The cell in the prison to be precise where the daily life of Danny is captured in fine detail. Everything from the daily grind to his involvement with the jail’s book club. The links between Morgan and Danny reveal themselves like the chinks in the prison’s walls.
The scenes in the prison felt real and very disturbingly so. The cold, dark, metal noises, the chants and cries of men, the sound of enclosure. You can see the prisoners as real people and see the cells in every small detail – how life must be in prison and how it affects the mind, whether you are innocent or not.
The time before his release is a tough one with Morgans faith in him the only thing keeping him company. Morgans’ world at this point is as enclosed as Danny’s cell. She sees and knows what she believes to be true.
Back to the 1980s we go and to a young Morgan and a young Danny. Their friendship which started here careered off the road later on and back in the present day, it starts to become clear as to how the past can provide the clues to the present. And vice versa.
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