Top of the House
by Andrew Towers
Murdoch Books
Cross-dresser Maurice knew he didn’t pass as a female and, anyway, he didn’t really want to present an entirely convincing female facade. At 47, he liked hovering in the space of ambiguity. Though, since losing his teaching job, his existence had been fairly marginal. He did have a flat but the rent was overdue and the power had been cut off. His designer handbag was faux and the local hoodlums bullied him via YouTube.
Maurice wasn’t when he lost his job, but he was now in a relationship with ex-student Karen. She was bullied at school and now lived with the effects of a brain-damaging drug overdose. Apart from their mating ritual involving shopping trolleys (you’ll just have to read the details); their only escape from their marginal existence was the Pentagon where all the town’s misfits gathered for Bingo.
“As the moon draws the tides, the Pentagon, sooner or later, drew every outcast, every misfit, every penniless, musty-smelling tramp puffing on his harmonica on the street corner of society, into its mystical seedy orbit. And like a five-pointed star in a Hammer Horror film, it conjured up its own brand of devilry.”
When the Pentagon announced the big prize night jackpot of a solid gold monkey, Maurice and Karen decided to make their own luck. They co-opted three others and meticulously planned an Ocean’s Eleven heist in Northumbria.
Maurice was a “spectacularly unlucky person”, which made him wonder why he thought he would get away with the whole insane plan in the first place, especially with such a dubious collection of co-conspirators. The five muddled minds got together to pull off the impossible. But with the local drug dealer/psychopath Chunky on their tails and some very unpredictable predictive text; it was going to be a bumpy ride. This is a really endearing story about seedy, quirky characters as they go for gold.
Lezly Herbert
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