Fiction
Patrick’s Alphabet
When a teenage couple are found murdered in their car, a boy called Adam Sligo is the only suspect. The letter A is found blazoned on the wall at the murder scene and is soon followed, around town, by the other letters of the alphabet, each immaculately painted in red. What do the letters mean? Is Sligo playing games with the police? Or putting a spell on the town?
Perry Scholes is mixed up in all this from the start: a man haunted by cars and death – and photographic images of both. He trawls the motorways and edgelands listening to police radio, getting to the car-crash or the crime scene before them. He makes a living selling these shots to the papers. He is the one who spots the painted letters, and begins to document their appearances.
As the town is paralysed by fear and paranoia, a vigilante cult emerges, arming itself for the battle against evil. Perry finds himself trapped in a nightmare. A killer is at large, and the alphabetical messages he leaves seem to be personal messages for him.
Reviews of Patrick’s Alphabet
“An intriguing, gripping and highly unconventional crime novel”
Joseph Farrell, TLS
“What makes this book different is its use of language. The narrative voice turns from a dark whodunit into something more intriguing. But Roberts never forgets that his principal responsibility is to keep us hooked – and that he does with aplomb”
Barry Forshaw, Daily Express
“Reminded me at different times of Camus’s The Plague, Kafka’s The Castle… A disturbing and intense piece of fiction”
Peter Guttridge, The Observer