Painter Man

Malcolm is the Painter Man, out of step with the art scene but determined to explore his own place in the landscape.

He loves his family but, without meaning to, he isolates himself from Alice, the wife who inspires him.

When she turns elsewhere for attention she takes their two children and leaves Malcolm to his restless art and his demons. Hanging by a thread - falling out with friends, in trouble with the law - he strives and fails to keep in touch with his confident, likeable daughter Caroline and his boy, David, an awkward chip off the old block.

Recognition by an enigmatic art buyer is some comfort; but it is only when Suzie, a breezy aromatherapist, enters Malcolm's life that recovery seems possible.

Together they track down the mystery of her London ghosts, and Malcolm sees a chance to free himself from his own nightmare - a long-ago accident in a Black Country steel works. And when Malcolm forges stronger, reconciling links with his son and daughter it is touching and true, prepared for with delicately woven plotting and masterly prose.