Что пропало

Set in Birmingham, tells the funny, touching story of Frank, a local TV news presenter. Beneath his awkwardly corny screen persona, Frank is haunted by disappearances: the mysterious hit and run that killed his predecessor Phil Smethway; the demolition of his father’s post-war brutalist architecture; and the unmarked passing of those who die alone in the city. Frank struggles to make sense of these absences while having to report endless local news stories of holes opening up in people’s gardens and trying to cope with his resolutely miserable mother. The result is that rare thing: a page-turning novel which asks the big questions in an accessible way, and is laugh-out-loud funny, genuinely moving and ultimately uplifting.

Welcome to Lomaverde — a new Spanish utopia for those seeking their place in the sun. Now a ghost town where feral cats outnumber the handful of anxious residents. A place of empty pools, long afternoons and unrelenting sunshine.

Here, widowed Midlands bus driver Dermot Lynch turns up one bright morning. He's come to visit his son Eammon and his girlfriend, Laura. Except Eammon never opened Dermot's letter announcing his trip. Just like he can't quite get out of bed, or fix anything, or admit Laura has left him.

Though neither father nor son knows quite what to make of the other, Lomaverde's Brits — Roger and Cheryl, Becca and Iain — see in Dermot a shot of fresh blood. Someone to enliven their goat-hunting trips, their paranoid speculations, the endless barbecuing and bickering.

As Dermot and Eammon gradually reveal to one another the truth about why each left home, both get drawn further into the bizarre rituals of ex-pat life, where they uncover a shocking secret at the community's heart.

Mr Lynch's Holiday is about how families fracture and heal themselves and explores how living 'abroad' can feel less like a holiday and more like a life sentence.