It is the early 1970s in the Highlands of Scotland & for 16-year-old Simon Crimmons theres really not much to do. He can hang around with his pals or his first-ever girlfriend Nikki he can dream about a first motorbike to get him out of the Port & among the hills but in truth hes going nowhere. The only local drama & romance is provided by the rural railway & Simon ends up working on the trains by chance thrown into a community of jaded older men. But that summer he is introduced to a world far more glamorous & strange. He meets the louche bohemian Alex & his dark gorgeous sister Varie: all that remains of the doomed family of the great house at Broken Moan where their father Andrew Bultitude is Commander of the Pass. When Simon falls in love with the otherworldly Varie he is suddenly given a freedom & mobility that is both thrilling & vertiginous. With The Deadmans Pedal Alan Warner returns to the landscapes of Morvern Callar & his early novels: a world where the real & the surreal grim trade unionists & the crazed aristocracy live under the shadows of the same great mountains along the same railway line. A demented comedy a wild romantic fling
- The Deadmans Pedal" is another thrillingly imagined adventure by one of our finest novelists."