Shirley Steadman, a 70 year old living in a small town in the North East of England, loves her volunteer work at the local hospital radio. She likes giving back to the community, and even more so, she likes getting out of the house. Haunted by the presence of her son, a reluctant Royal Navy officer who was lost at sea, and still in the shadow of her long dead abusive husband, she doesn’t like being alone much.
One day, at the radio station, she is playing around with the equipment and finds a frequency that was never there before. It is a pirate radio station, and as she listens as the presenter starts reading the news. But there is one problem – the news being reported is tomorrows. Shirley first thinks it is a mere misunderstanding – a wrong date. But she watches as everything reported comes true. At first, Shirley is in awe of the station, and happily tunes in to hear the news.
But then the presenter starts reporting murders – murders that happen just the way they were reported.
And Shirley is the only one who can stop them.
Book Information: Print Length: 304 pages. Publishers: Orion. Publication Date 5th August 2021
About the Author:
Chris McGeorge is a graduate of MA Creative Writing (Crime/Thriller) from City University London where he wrote debut thriller Guess Who as his thesis. He told stories from an early age, writing and drawing comics and then scripts and finally novels. He loves Golden Age crime and gets incredibly excited about anything a little out of the ordinary. In his spare time, he is an actor with Durham Dramatic Society.
He lives in Durham with his hamster, Agatha Christie.
My Review:
If you haven’t read any of Chris’ previous books before then you are in for a head-messing treat as Chris specialises in confusing the reader and creating impossible situations in cleverly plotted storylines.
His first book Guess Who (read my review here) is about 5 strangers locked in a hotel room with a body in the bathtub. His second book Now You See Me (read my review here) is about 6 friends on a canal boat that travel through the longest tunnel and only 1 person came out the other side. His third book Inside Out (read my review here) is about a prisoner who wakes up in the morning and her cellmate has been murdered, but the door was locked all night. So that gives you a little taster of Chris’ books and Half-Past Tomorrow is another original mystery with some “wtf” moments thrown in.
Shirley Steadman is the main character. She’s a seventy year old grandmother. She lives alone in a bungalow with her cat, suffers from aches and pains, working as a volunteer at the local hospital on the radio station and attends a regular embroidery meeting with her friends.
Shirley hasn’t had an easy life, her husband was an abusive, cohersive bully who dominated her and their two children. Her eldest child Gabe took his own life years ago and she still lives with the guilt and grief every day.
One day whilst at the hospital she decides to put on an ancient radio and whilst scanning the airwaves comes across a pirate radio station. Entrigued, she listens to the announcer read the news and discovers the news appears to be events yet to happen and when she digs deeper she uncovers a strange and potentially impossible situation.
I absolutely adored Shirley. She was an amazing character and I think more books should start to feature the middle to late age protaganists as their past and life experiences bring so much more depth to the stories. Shirley is a very funny and opinionated lady who has been dealt a really unlucky hand with her family, but even though her body is not quite as quick as her wit and her hands keep her awake all night in pain and her heart is begging her to slow down, she is determined to work out the truth behind the radio station.
If you enjoyed Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club, then I think you will love this book too.
My thanks to the publisher for my advanced copy of this book and I was delighted and honoured to arrange the blogtour, so my thanks to all the incredible bloggers who took part in this tour and took the time to read, review and share their thoughts.
Check out their blogs below:
