Steve Dewey

The arrogance and folly of youth. The strength of friendship. The madness of obsessive love. During the long, hot summer of 1976, Charlie, Paul, and their friends wander the sun-soaked hill tops, searching for answers, looking for UFOs, discussing the occult, drinking, flirting, smoking and kissing. Charlie had always fancied Imogen. Tall, beautiful Imogen. Everybody loved her. But when he fell for Paul's sister, he felt he could at last put all that behind him. It wasn't like he was obsessed or anything. No, he wasn't like that at all. Paul had studied the occult masters, and was a neophyte no longer. He knew how to perform the Banishing Ritual. He had seen Raphael and Ariel. So when he whimsically decided to work the paths of the Kabbala, what could possibly go wrong? Everything. Because when the Raven of Dispersion enters their world, a spiral into madness begins.

It's the summer of 1976 -- the dazzling summer, the long hot summer, the summer when the sun shone always, and would shine always and forever -- and young old friends Simon and Julie drift through the glorious lazy holiday that stretches before them, wondering what they should do about the loves they somehow left behind, before the sun came out. As they share time together under the blue skies, in the sultry heat, with their friends -- the friend who loves his car, the friend who loves fixing cars, the friend whose boyfriend loves his drink, the friend who loves all the boys, the friend who loves somebody else's girlfriend -- they wonder who it is they should love. Out on the hills, out in the fields, and riding in cars with the wind in their hair, Simon and Julie become languorously entangled. Can this entanglement last longer than sunshine? Or is it only a creation of this magical summer?Their story is episodic, picaresque, sentimental, romantic. And most genial.

When you're young you have little to worry about. You certainly don't worry about death.And then Nick met a hitman. The hitman had ethics, he said. No women, no children. When Nick told his friends what had happened, they laughed. Nick laughed, too. Of course, it was mad. The hitman was just a lonely nutter, the type you sometimes met out on the road, the type who told tall tales. They all forgot about the hitman. Instead they worried about themselves. Nick wondered when he could get out of town, Mark obsessed about Chrissie, and Simon missing Anna, found Jill. Gaz continued stealing things. When Molly breezed into town, and said she was a spy, they thought she was as mad as the hitman. She was looking for her sister, she said, and for a man she always called Archie even though she hated him. Then Nick saw the car that had picked him up. The nutter's car, the hitman's car. Intrigued, he and Mark followed it. They were blithely riding into dangers they couldn't comprehend.After all, the hitman's ethics didn't cover Nick.

They were all crossing lines in their search for answers.Peta Shepherd had already crossed the line. Archie Conn might know why, and Harry Roberts would cross lines to find him. Emily Freeman had crossed a line, leaving the US and moving to London to be with Len Stone, Peta's friend, Archie's nemesis. Her head was full of secrets; why was she leaving? Colonel Skinner would cross lines to discover why, and to keep the Brits off his back. Mick Edge would cross lines to discover why the Yanks were operating on his soil without his authorisation, and what Archie had learned from Peta Shepherd about the aliens she had once talked to.And Archibald Franklin Conn? He had crossed many lines in his time - but the line he was about to cross would put him far beyond the pale. In the end, all lines cross - and the outcome changes lives forever.

The Warminster mystery is fifty years old. The mystery began as unusual sounds on the morning of Christmas 1964 and continued as a UFO flap until 1977. The locals called the unusual lights and sounds central to the mystery "the Thing". The memory of that mystery remained in the background of ufology throughout the years, even while other events took centre stage. This book reviews what happened during the crazy, exciting years of the Warminster mystery. It is not a long list of the sighting reports; it is a short history of the events - the lights, the sounds - the media reports, and the characters that shaped the Thing. It is a history of the mystery. 8/10: Snappy and even-handed review of whatever it was... -- Fortean Times nicely written ... makes the perfect introduction to the Warminster affair, managing to be both open-minded and objective. -- John Rimmer, The Magonia Blog.