We’re delighted to welcome Tom Benn and David Peace to the shop on Tuesday 19th April when they’ll be discussing their latest books OXBLOOD and TOKYO REDUX with host Rob Parker.

About the books:

OXBLOOD – Tom Benn

Wythenshawe, South Manchester. 1985.

The Dodds family once ruled Manchester’s underworld; now the men are dead, leaving three generations of women trapped in a house haunted by violence, harbouring an unregistered baby.

Matriarch Nedra presides over the household, which bustles with activity as she prepares the welcome feast for her grandson Kelly’s return from prison.

Her grieving daughter-in-law Carol is visited by both the welcome, intimate ghost of her murdered lover, and by Mac, an ageing criminal enforcer, a man who may just offer her a real and possible future.

And then there is Jan – the teenage tearaway running as fast as she can from her mother, her grandmother, and her own unnamed baby.

Over the course of a few days, the Dodds women must each confront the true legacy of the men who have defined their lives; and seize the opportunity to break the cycle for good.

A blistering portrait of a family on fire, Oxblood lays bare the horror of violence, the exile of grief, and the extraordinary power of love.

TOKYO REDUX – David Peace

Tokyo, July 1949, President Shimoyama, Head of the National Railways of Japan, goes missing just a day after serving notice of 30,000 job losses. In the midst of the US Occupation, against the backdrop of widespread social, political and economic reforms – as tensions and confusion reign – American Detective Harry Sweeney leads the missing person’s investigation for General MacArthur’s GHQ.

Fifteen years later and Tokyo is booming. As the city prepares for the 1964 Olympics and the global spotlight, Hideki Murota, a former policeman during the Occupation period, and now a private investigator, is given a case which forces him to go back to confront a time, a place and a crime he’s been hiding from for the past fifteen years.

Over twenty years later, in the autumn and winter of 1988, as the Emperor Showa is dying, Donald Reichenbach, an aging American, eking out a living teaching and translating, sits drinking by the Shinobazu Pond in Ueno, knowing the final reckoning of the greatest mystery of the Showa Era is down to him.

About the authors:

Tom Benn’s first novel, The Doll Princess, was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Portico Prize, and longlisted for the CWA’s John Creasey Dagger. Benn’s creative nonfiction has appeared in the Paris Review and he won the BFI’s iWrite scheme for emerging screenwriters. His first film Real Gods Require Blood premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for Best Short Film at the BFI London Film Festival. Originally from Stockport, he teaches on the UEA Crime Fiction Creative Writing MA and lives in Norwich.

David Peace – named in 2003 as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists – was born and brought up in Yorkshire. He is the author of eleven novels including the Red Riding Quartet, adapted for television by Channel Four in 2009, GB84, which was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, The Damned Utd, Red or Dead, which was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize in 2013, and most recently Tokyo Redux. He lives in Tokyo.

Doors: 6.30, event starts: 6.45

Tickets are £3 or free when purchasing a copy of either book. OXBLOOD and TOKYO REDUX will also be available to purchase on the night and Tom and David will be signing copies after the talk. If you would like a signed copy but cannot make the event, please contact us on 0161 274 3331 or manchester@blackwell.co.uk and we can arrange this for you.