As someone who has admired Steve Tilston's music for nearly 40 years, I was intrigued to hear that he'd written a novel and particularly that it was set in the 15th Century, as many of his classic songs have historical themes- Slip Jigs and Reels, The Naked Highwayman, Tom Paine, King of the Coiners ,Coronado and the Turk, The Turncoat, amongst others. I usually read crime novels when I read fiction and the last couple of novels that I really rated were "Engleby" by Sebastian Faulks and Blake Morrison's two novels. I thoroughly enjoyed reading "All for Poor Jack" with its detailed settings in 15th century Bristol and the New World and it reminded me of the historical novels of GA Henty and Henry Treece I read a long time back (albeit if they'd been given a dose of Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy or some input from Sam Peckinpah !) , basically an exciting adventure story set in the parallel worlds of the New World and its warring native American tribes and late medieval Bristol. Without giving too much away, the story follows the harrowing experiences of two brothers, Matthew and Simon Tyrell, one taken prisoner by a Pequot tribe when shipwrecked on a pre-Cabot voyage of discovery and the other an outlaw on the run in the badlands beyond the Clifton Gorge in Bristol in 1485, just as news of the Battle of Bosworth is filtering through. A sound piece of story-telling, colourful, vivid, humorous and well-observed, dipping into a period of history which is brought to life with no concessions to political correctness and which shows, human beings forced into decisions in situations where their survival is at stake. A good old-fashioned clear narrative in which well-defined characters bring a period of history to life- a bit like one of Steve's songs, really !
