Bareback
By John Burke
‘I could murder that woman!’
So say many inhabitants of the little Scottish Border town of Kilstane. The domineering Hannah Ferguson is determined to take over the annual ceremony based on the legend of a girl who long ago rode bareback across the wilds to save the town from English attackers. The organizing committee is equally determined to stop Hannah.
Into the fray is plunged young Sir Nicholas Torrance, the new laird, with unfamiliar perils to face – not least that of choosing a local girl to play the heroine, inevitably causing outrage in the process.
A theft from his tower house brings an attractive woman detective inspector into his life and she is more deeply involved when there really is a murder and the corpse is left close to his doorstep.
But the great historic pageant must go ahead . . . ending with the wild chase of an unexpected quarry.
John Burke was born in Sussex and brought up in Liverpool. During the war he served with the RAF, REME, and on attachment to the Royal Marines during the liberation of Europe. He started one of the first science-fiction fan magazines in Britain, The Satellite and had several short stories published before winning an Atlantic Award in Literature from the Rockefeller Foundation for his first novel, Swift Summer. He is now a full-time author and has had more than 140 books published, including a large number of ‘book of the film’ and TV novelizations, including Look Back in Anger, Dad’s Army, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, The Bill, London’s Burning and Band of Gold. He has also had two titles published previously by Hale: The Happy Invaders and Around the M25. He has five daughters and two sons and lives in south-west Scotland with his wife.
