The Nice Bloke

Harry Blenheim wasnâ t what you might call a good-looking fellow, but his face was full of character, with the kindest eyes God ever made. Thatâ s what his wife Esther had said, back in the days when theyâ d loved and laughed together. Now, it was five years since they had even kissed goodnight.

Still, everyone in Fellburn respected Harry, even if there was no love lost between him and his hard-headed father-in-law. No one was more surprised than Harry that he should let himself become involved in a fling with an office girl. He knew it was a warning sign, that the cracks were beginning to show, but worse was to come. Nice bloke that he was, nothing could have prepared Harry Blenheim for the scandal that shook his life with all the force of an earthquake.

'Catherine Cookson's novels are about hardship, the intractability of life and of individuals, the struggle first to survive and next to make sense of one's survival. Humour, toughness, resolution and generosity are Cookson virtues, in a world which she often depicts as cold and violent. Her novels are weighted and driven by her own early experiences of illegitimacy and poverty. This is what gives them power. In the specialised world of women's popular fiction, Cookson has created her own territory' - Helen Dunmore, The Times