Beneath the Streets

When Jeremy Thorpe hired thugs to kill his ex-lover, they botched it. What if they had succeeded? ‘As boldly conceived as it is vividly realised, Beneath the Streets is a delight’ – John Preston LONGLISTED: Polari Prize It is February 1976, and the naked corpse of a young rent boy is fished out of a pond on Hampstead Heath. Since the police don’t seem to care, twenty-year-old Tommy Wildeblood – himself a former ‘Dilly boy’ prostitute – finds himself investigating. Dodging murderous Soho hoodlums and the agents of a more sinister power, Tommy uncovers another, even more shocking crime: the senior politician Jeremy Thorpe has ordered the murder of his former male lover. The trail of guilt seems to lead higher still, and a ruthless Establishment will stop at nothing to cover its tracks. In a gripping thriller whose cast of real-life characters includes Prime Minister Harold Wilson and his adviser Lady Falkender, Adam Macqueen plays ‘what if’ with Seventies political history – with a sting in the tail that reminds us that the truth can be just as chilling as fiction.

About the Author :
Adam Macqueen is a senior journalist on Private Eye and co-presents its podcast, Page 94. His non-fiction books include the bestselling history of the magazine, and political miscellanies The Prime Minister's Ironing Board and The Lies of the Land: An Honest History of Political Deceit. He is the author of Beneath the Streets and The Enemy Within - the first two in the Tommy Willdblood series of reimagined detective fiction. He has also published a collection of Ghost Stories. He has also been on the editorial team of Popbitch and The Big Issue. The Inalienable Right is the third in the Tommy Wildblood series. He lives on the South Coast with his husband, artist Michael Tierney.

Review :
‘What a cracking book! It’s addictive, thrilling and utterly delicious and has the most chilling of twists at the end’   ‘A wonderfully concocted storyline and plot which blends fiction with real-life characters in a gripping and intriguing thriller’   ‘A dark, realistic, totally gripping and intriguing thriller that had me glued to the page. A great blend of fact and fiction... full of tension and superb characterisation’   ‘A cracking read...a real page turner, with many twists…and a surprising and shocking ending. I raced through this ‘what if’ thriller, enjoying it very much but after I’d finished, I felt angry: about the exploitation of young boys by both thugs and ‘officer class’, about police corruption, about government cover-ups and what seems to be a quite illegal use of the Secret Service for purely political ends’   ‘I love, absolutely love, alternate history and conspiracy thrillers. I particularly enjoy works grounded in great historical moments. Real historical figures and events are weaved seamlessly through [this] novel’s narrative. It also looks at the injustices gay men faced in the seventies. This human element is well done and compelling…I look forward to reading book two, wherever it takes us’   ‘A gripping and occasionally hilarious depiction of what, up to this year at least, must have been the craziest period of modern British politics. The twist, on literally the last page, is superb. While some 1970s scandals were played out beneath the streets, some were hiding in very plain sight’   ‘Wonderfully evocative...darkly funny...deliciously believable’   ‘A gripping thriller, interwoven with a really important thread about the condition of being gay in the 1970s’ ‘Ticks all the boxes for me. Gay history. Jeremy Thorpe. And a rent boy turned detective called Tommy Wildeblood. Fantastic’ ‘Adam Macqueen's gripping debut novel is based on a provocative counterfactual question... He depicts his grim milieu engagingly – the 70s have seldom seemed so grotty and threatening – and this very English scandal has wit and invention to spare’ ‘What if Jeremy Thorpe had succeeded in murdering Norman Scott? That’s the gripping premise behind this smart story of corruption, murder and establishment cover-up’ ‘A wonderfully evocative walk on the wild side of 1970s London, Beneath the Streets is darkly comic and deeply moving. A breathtaking, heartbreaking thriller’   ‘Really well done. The detail and the authenticity is all there: London as a really scary, edgy, ugly place. The atmosphere is brilliant... As a portrait of a world I thought it was really fantastic, and I also read it with my computer by my side because I was constantly looking up the real-life figures and I was constantly shocked and amazed by how much of this is true’   ‘A thrilling read...incredibly powerful’   ‘A f***ing fantastic read. A gripping what-if thriller, packed with vivid period detail and page-turning twists. To find myself actually making an appearance in the final chapter was just cream on the cake’   ‘A page-turning mystery, skilfully plotted and filled with tension, Beneath The Streets lifts the lid on 1970s subculture to spine-tingling effect’   ‘A thrilling and brilliantly imaginative novel. It takes you into the secret world of Soho in the 1970s. But then suddenly it opens another door into the hidden world of violence and corruption that still lies underneath the England we know today’   ‘Stonkingly good’   ‘After I finished writing A Very English Scandal, I took a solemn vow — that I would rather spit-roast my own offspring than read anything else about the Jeremy Thorpe Affair. Seldom have I gone back on my word with more pleasure. As boldly conceived as it is vividly realised, Beneath the Streets is a delight’   ‘You think you know how mental the 1970s was? This book will remind you that it was even more insane than that: a time when the prime minister’s personal doctor seriously offered to poison one of his aides. Any TV adaptation would probably have to feature 10 percent fewer blowjobs’   ‘Adam Macqueen weaves real life events with fiction in such a masterful way and with such reverence for gay history’