Book details

Book description

A motiveless kidnapping and a solo flight to the dark side of the moon are juxtaposed in William Corlett's extraordinary novel. At first the narratives seem unrelated until the reader sees the dramatic parallels in the two situations, which give the book its force and relevance. The story begins with the kidnapping. A boy is taken from his Scottish boarding school but there seems to be no reason behind the kidnapping: no ransom, no threats, just a note saying WE HAVE GOT YOUR BOY. MAY SOCIETY ROT AND THIS MESS OF A WORLD PERISH. While the police sift through the evidence, a lonely astronaut faces his private terrors during a critical moon flight. William Corlett grew up in Yorkshire. After training at RADA, he worked as an actor in the theatre and on television before devoting himself full-time to writing. His teen-novel The Gate of Eden was successfully dramatised in the 1970s, and he won an Emmy for his dramatisation of The Magician's House for the BBC. William Corlett died in 2005 at the age of 67.