Cley

By Carey Harrison

The year is 1968, and Jack Thurgo is about to plunge into marriage.

Before he finally commits himself, he takes a last holiday on his own, cycling to the Norfolk coast. To a young man alone for the first time in years, life seems full of enjoyable temptations.

Then Jack comes across a fatal car crash in a country lane and recognizes his former boarding school mentor, John Bromley, as the comatose survivor. Bromley had been a father figure to Jack, replacing the father he lost during World War Two. But at the hospital, a woman identifies him as Mr. Sindacombe.

Unable to let this go, Jack starts to investigate the matter with a feverish determination bordering on the obsessive. As his search deepens, he is transported back to his school days when he faced the fearsome Mr. Bromley, at times tempestuous, and yet so often the father Jack never knew. At the heart of the English countryside, the summer days blur into one while the truth reveals itself…

Cley is a haunting tale exploring the inner workings of family, relationships and the ghosts of our childhood. It is the second book in Harrison’s The Heart Beneath Quartet following on from Richard’s Feet.

Carey Harrison was born in Britain and raised in the United States where he has spent the majority of his working life. He began as a stage playwright, completing 42 plays for the stage and 40 plays for BBC radio. He is also an actor, teach and novelist and was described in the Dublin Evening News as ‘one of the most accomplished writers of our time’. He lives in Woodstock, New York.