Spoils of the Moon
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
1967, St Ann's Nottingham, a typical late Victorian, working class, neighbourhood in acute decline, alarming poverty, a slum. Three hundred of Nottingham's dirtiest acres.
This is the time and place Brendan and Pauline's son was born, emigration the only option. They were called ten-pound-poms.
The journey on the ship, SS Canberra, was as frightening and exhilarating as the first year shacked up in the Nissan hut at the hostel, Adelaide, Southern Australia. Years before, Brendan's parents and sister, Beanie, had moved there after buying a farm in the outback.
Brendan and Pauline settled into a new home in the satellite town of Elizabeth. Brendan only had one question on signing at the labour exchange: does the section about National Service apply to him? - he was soon to find out.
Pauline suffered bouts of homesickness, fuelled by Brendan's prolonged absences of long working hours. A new mother, she soon became depressed. It wasn't long before Brendan was called up for National Service.
The year is 1969, a global celebration of the moon landings. President Nixon, in commemoration bestowed a hundred and thirty-five gifts of lunar rocks to friendly foreign governments. In 1970, Adelaide museum was proud to display a plaque containing two lunar rocks.
Nobody thought they would be worth stealing, until Brendan, Beanie's boyfriend, Troy, and his mate, Brian, on finishing basic training did just that, with the military precision they had recently learned.
Brendan hides the rocks and is forced to ask his sister, Beanie, to collect them. They end up in the police cells after a drunken brawl, hours after the hoist. The judge orders no custodial sentences because he was told, unbeknown to these men, that effective immediately they will be impressed into overseas service.
Brendan is killed saving some villagers in Vietnam. Troy and Brian disappear - things happen when you steal lunar rocks from the government and embarrass them. The Americans want them back for a sinister reason.
The news of her husband's death sends Pauline into a mental institute, leaving Beanie with her son. Beanie recently gave birth also to a son. She takes both of the boys back to the UK.
This is the story of those two boys, Jordi and Greg - now men.
The family business model, started by their mum, Beanie, was to buy handmade crafts from Asia, repair what gets damaged in shipping, and then sell them from their market stall in Camden, London.
Beanie died, leaving them clues to the past and circumstances that cause both men to go to Asia to buy more products for their business before the programmed road works cut their access off and potentially ruins their product-hungry business.
It's not long before one of them is hanging upside down naked in a small Vietnamese village near the Cambodian border, tortured by a man with an American accent. He wants the lunar rocks.
The American, who has been on their trail since London, chose the wrong village and was chased off in a hale of bullets. Ordered by an old villager, one of the men Brendan saved in the war. A translator shows them a picture of two baby boys. She also hands over Brendan's identification documents with the same surname as them and various other personal belongings, along with the story of how he saved some of the villagers.
The clock is ticking now and they are on a collision course with others, tracking down their true family roots and the whereabouts of the lunar rocks - now valued in millions.
In Australia, they encounter Brian and Troy, and are helped by Brian's daughter who is tough, beautiful, and vulnerable to Jordi's charms. But who is whose son? Only Pauline has the answer back at the family farm in the outback -- their final destination. They are not the only ones who turned up looking for answers. The end gives us some shocking surprises and personal growth.
Mark Shearman
Artist, writer, Book Cover Designer. Voracious reader, Blogger. Tea drinker, dog owner. Chief-cook and dish washer loader. Jocose, English Ex-pat in Spain. Beach freak. Science fiction fan. Habitual doubler of entendres. Novelist. Caricature and Cartoonist junkie. Part-time philanthropist. Music nut. Movie addict. Occasional faux finisher. Renaissance man. Opinionated. Wordy. Modest.
Related to Spoils of the Moon
Related ebooks
Riptide (Strangefall Book #1) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDark Descent Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Riot Party Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings87 Seconds Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPlanet of Peril Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lie of the Tiger: Windy Mountain, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlood Ice Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSalt of the Earth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInkling Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Owl Taxi Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Babel Chip Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Chance Does Not Exist Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Perilous Planet Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTo The Market Place Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jonah Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGrave Garden: Jake Smith Mystery, #6 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBittersweet Blood: A Novel of The Order Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Angel of Terror Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Black Rat: Something Special Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Broughty Ferry Murder Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKilling Spree Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Grave Secrets Tales of Mystery and Mayhem Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHarm’s Reach Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5PLEd: Beginnings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJohnny Graphic and the Etheric bomb: Johnny Graphic Adventures, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnder Handicap A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGin, Turpentine, Pennyroyal, Rue: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Girl in the Train Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRod of Moses Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Concealed Pursuit: A Seven Cities Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Action & Adventure Fiction For You
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Kingdom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue: by V.E. Schwab - A Comprehensive Summary Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wool: Book One of the Silo Series Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Count of Monte Cristo Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Darkness That Comes Before Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Huckleberry Finn Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Three Fates Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Serpent: A Novel from the NUMA files Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hour of the Assassin: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Grace of Kings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Outlawed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leave the World Behind: A Read with Jenna Pick Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Billy Summers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Learn German! Lerne Englisch! ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND: In German and English Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Most Dangerous Game Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Swamp Story: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shift: Book Two of the Silo Series Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dust: Book Three of the Silo Series Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Scarlet Pimpernel Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Golden Notebook: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Termination Shock: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shantaram: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Town: A Play in Three Acts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The End of the World Running Club Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Learn Italian! Impara l'Inglese! ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND: In Italian and English Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bean Trees: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Spoils of the Moon
0 ratings0 reviews