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.
It's my pleasure to be hosting the blog tour for Half-Past Tomorrow today. Many thanks to Chris McGeorge, Orion Books and Tracy Fenton from Compulsive Readers for inviting me and for my advance digital copy of the novel received through Netgalley.
Old ladies solving murder mysteries have been popular in books and on screen for years but Shirley Steadman is no Miss Marple or Jessica Fletcher. For a start, she has a fabulous potty mouth - in spite of her more advanced years, she isn't averse to unleashing a volley of swear words. And she is regularly visited by her dead son, Gabe.
The book opens with Gabe's death by suicide years ago but Shirley has been conversing with him in her kitchen for some months. This immediately gives some sense of the sort of woman she is; she was understandably shocked when Gabe first appeared to her but now she's accepted it, despite her daughter's admonitions that it's all in her mind. She is open to other possibilities even if they are apparently impossible. When Gabe was still alive he used a Tardis mug which is particularly apt - a pirate radio station that appears to know the future and talk of paradoxes means there is something deliciously Whovian about this mystery.
Shirley volunteers for the local hospital radio and it's here that she first discovers the curious Mallet AM radio station and realises that the news appears to be predicting the future. She assumes it's a mistake initially but is soon shocked to realise that the predictions come true. At first it's all fairly benign - a man suffering minor injuries after falling off his ladder and a milk float colliding with a postbox - and she is intrigued and rather excited. During the course of the novel it becomes clear that Shirley's life was effectively put on hold during the years of her marriage to the domineering, oppressive Bob and that since his death, she is keen to make up for lost time. Determined not to go gentle into that dark night. she becomes fixated on figuring out whether the radio station really is a modern-day Nostradamus even when it puts her own health at risk - especially after the next prophecy announces a murder.
However, despite the fantastical premise, this is more crime than science fiction and anybody who has read Chris McGeorge's books in the past knows just how brilliant he is at concocting fiendish locked-room mysteries. Half-Past Tomorrow is a different sort of impossible puzzle but it's no less perplexing as Shirley desperately tries to identify the person behind Mallet AM and to stop the supposedly foreseen murders. Should she believe the 'big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff ' explanation of how time works and accept that somebody really can see the future or as various surprises come to light, could there be a different reason why her life has suddenly been thrown into chaos?
In the best tradition of indomitable older crime fighters, Shirley puts herself into some risky situations as she investigates potential leads herself, rather than just phoning the remarkably understanding DI Mike 'call me Fletch' Fletchinder but even walking up a steep hill isn't a straightforward prospect for the septuagenarian. Shirley's often caustic thoughts about others and her annoyance at the limitations of her aged body ensures much of Half-Past Tomorrow is drily witty but there is a more emotional side to this engrossing novel too. The losses she has endured, both physical and in terms of time and opportunities thanks to her abusive husband, have left her wracked with guilt for the mistakes she believes she made. Her acerbic tenacity contrasts with her poignant self-doubt making her a hugely engaging character I couldn't fail to fall in love with. There are other interesting characters in the book, with a couple being particularly fascinating but although Shirley's frame might be frail, she's the one who carries this story and she does it beautifully.
An old lady trying to stop murders predicted by a pirate radio station is such an enticing, imaginative premise for a book and Half-Past Tomorrow more than met my expectations. It's brilliantly original, compulsive and enormous fun. I loved it!
Half-Past Tomorrow is published by Orion Books, purchasing links can be found here or order from your favourite independent bookshop.
Don't miss the rest of the blog tour, details are below.
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