At the heart of Sympathy for the Devil, there's a real-life spy exchange. In April 1964, a young, idealistic British lecturer visiting the Soviet Union with his wife Barbara stumbled into the arms of the Soviet intelligence services, the KGB. What exactly Gerald Brooke was doing in Russia remains a bit of a mystery, to [...]
One of the characters in A Song from Dead Lips is Sam Ezeoke, a passionate supporter of Biafran independence. The Biafran War has receded into history, but at the time it was a hugely important moment for the post-colonial world. For my own family too. My family left Enugu, Nigeria, in the year before the [...]
A Song from Dead Lips features the groupies known as The Apple Scruffs. In this article originally written for Rolling Stone, I add a bit of background to the story of the legendary 60s pop fans. She came in through the bathroom window. No. Really. She did. Emma Eldredge, a 63-year-old retired nurse from Gloucester, [...]
The plot of A Song from Dead Lips revolves around the murder of a young woman who turns out to be one of the “Apple Scruffs”, a group of hardcore fans who were hanging around the group that year. 1968 was a troubling year for The Beatles. At the same time as London’s students were [...]
A House of Knives features real-life art dealer Robert Fraser. Few figures have had a bigger influence on the 20th century British art scene than Robert Fraser (1937-1986). He was the man who linked the world of Richard Hamilton and Peter Blake to The Beatles, and the man who gave The Rolling Stones their bohemian [...]
