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Four days after Nick Harman was seven, his father climbed onto a bridge high above four lanes of traffic, paused, then threw himself on the road below. That was over nine years ago. Today Nick was sixteen. The clock alongside his bed read 7:59.

Nick lives on a tough estate in north London. On his sixteenth birthday, his mother gives him a box left to him all those years ago. The contents lead Nick to discover what took his father from being a successful blues singer to taking his own life.

Against a background of shifting allegiances, involving the violent gangs on the estate and his first serious involvement with a girl, Nick is forced to come to terms, not only with whom his father was but who he is himself.

‘A fine novel about growing up by one of the masters of British crime fiction’ — Le Monde

John Harvey is the winner of the Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Dagger for Sustained Excellence in Crime Writing.

His latest adult novel is Cold in Hand, the latest in his long series of Resnick novels. Nick’s Blues is John Harvey’s first young adult book for twenty years – the opening title of Francois Guerif’s young adult crime fiction programme.