Evacuated from World War II London to a remote Devonshire village, Bobby tries to fit in with the community's many eccentric "stay behind" citizens, including the mysteriously enigmatic Bee King and a group of bullies who torture him and accuse him of being a spy. 30,000 first printing.

Five Boys: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

Jackson,Mick

British & Irish

William Morrow

When Bobby is evacuated from London to a remote Devonshire village, a strange new chapter of his life begins. Empty of its menfolk, the village is given over to the stay behinds: the women, the old and young, and five terrifying boys who accuse Bobby of being a Nazi spy. Then, there is the enigmatic Bee King, a mysterious figure who exercises a powerful, hypnotic influence on the village, and especially the boys. As the days wind down to the D-day invasion and the Allied soldiers crash the beaches along the French coast, the villagers will enact their own drama - a tense interplay of events that will engulf them all and ulti- mately reveal the truth about the Bee King. Brilliantly captivating and thoroughly researched, Five Boys is the tale of the war's impact on the home front, bringing to light a lost place and time with an expert touch.

United States

William Morrow Paperbacks

A novel short-listed for the 1997 Booker Prize offers a humorous portrait of the fifth Duke of Portland, a wealthy, eccentric, nineteenth-century aristocrat who constructed a vast network of underground tunnels from which he could escape to the world outside. Reprint.

The Underground Man

Penguin Group USA

The eccentric Fifth Duke of Portland built a series of tunnels beneath his home, devised a series of dumb waiters to carry him around the vast house, and gave each of his labourers a donkey and an umbrella. This is a fictional account of his last months.

Picador

The fifth Duke of Portland is a Victorian misfit, man who spends his time and wealth creating a network of tunnels beneath his Nottinghamshire estate. As he withdraws further from society he falls prey to his lonely self-absorption and to the mercy of his household staff. His rare appearances are misinterpreted and local gossip has inflated his eccentricities into sinister deformities.
No one, not even he, understands his most persistent ache, a pain of absence that no amount of tunnelling or searching can bring to light. The Duke’s slow piecing together of the truth about his past builds to an intensely moving and powerful conclusion.
‘The narrative structure is immaculate, the characterization superb, the prose so polished you can see your face in it’ Max Davidson, Daily Telegraph
‘Soaked through with originality and expertly written: tragicomic fiction with the most endearingly sympathetic of anti-heroes’ Dominic Bradbury, The Times 
‘A remarkable balancing act, witty, restrained and shot through with interesting tensions. As a first novel it is, quite simply, astonishing’ Christina Patterson, Observer 
‘A strong narrative drive, a Gothic twist and a wonderful cast of secondary characters make this an entrancingly readable book. What lifts it into the prize-deserving category is Jackson’s uncannily visual prose’ Miranda Seymour, Sunday Telegraph

Contemporary

FIVE BOYS

Faber and Faber

Five Boys/3D Fry's 5 Boys Milk Chocolate

Faber&Faber

From the pen of Mick Jackson, author of The Underground Man and Five Boys, come these ten acclaimed tales. Featuring undertakers, dark forests, resurrected butterflies and a singularly mean-spirited horse, the stories are nevertheless rooted in the realistic and all too recognisable world of retirement, loneliness, and childhood boredom. By turns funny, scary and heartbreaking, they are always illuminating, and further evidence of one of the most original and brilliant imaginations in contemporary fiction.

Ten Sorry Tales

Literary

Bears of England

Genre Fiction

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Jackson,Mick. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Jackson,Mick

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Jackson,Mick. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Five Boys: A Novel

Five Boys: A Novel

The Underground Man

The Underground Man

The Underground Man

FIVE BOYS

Five Boys/3D Fry's 5 Boys Milk Chocolate

Ten Sorry Tales

The Underground Man

Bears of England