Jimmy Boyle

The house was packed to the rafters and the mood inside was jubilant at London's Bloomsbury Theatre, when - on the night of June 30th 2003 - Caravan took to the stage to commemorate an astonishing career spanning 35 glorious years.Pye Hastings, Richard Coughlan, Geoffrey Richardson, Jan Schelhaas, Doug Boyle and Jim Leverton - joined for a few numbers by occasional band member and brother of Pye, Jimmy Hastings - delighted the audience with a set lasting over two hours and comprising of exquisitely performed material from Caravan's extraordinary and extensive body of work.

Beat music, British beat, or Merseybeat (after bands from Liverpool and nearby areas beside the River Mersey) is a pop and rock music genre that developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1960s. Beat music is a fusion of rock and roll (mainly Chuck Berry guitar style and the midtempo beat of artists like Buddy Holly), doo-wop, skiffle and R&B. The genre provided many of the bands responsible for the British Invasion of the American pop charts starting in 1964, and provided the model for many important developments in pop and rock music, including the format of the rock group around lead, rhythm and bass guitars with drums. The Beat Of The Pops - excellent selection of beat tracks.

Twenty-five years ago, Dave Boyle got into a car. When he came back four days later, he was different in a way that destroyed his friendship with Sean Devine and Jimmy Marcus. Now Sean's a cop, Jimmy's a store owner with a prison record and mob connections, and Dave's trying hard to keep his demons safely submerged. When Jimmy's daughter Katie is found murdered, each of the men must confront a past that none is eager to acknowledge. Lehane tugs delicately on the strands that weave this neighborhood together, testing for their strengths and weaknesses; this novel seems as much anthropological case study as thriller.