The Summervale Volunteers

Review

The Summervale Volunteers by Alan McQueen

4:09pm Friday 13th February 2009

By Melanie Dakin »

Sacked from his job, barrister Alan Hitchcock (known simply as H) persuades the residents of a care home to stage a daring heist in this highly humorous debut novel.

Apparently inspired by the Ealing comedy classic films, the book often reads like a film script, complete with highly amusing and naturalistic dialogue and some charmingly unique turns of phrase.

"Oh joy unconfined," comments one of the characters, which pretty much sums up this book for me.

As the story goes, H, booted out of his job after 40 years devoted service has nothing much to look forward to. Divorced, destitute and destined to live out the rest of his days in a countryside care facility; he's at his wit's end.

Luckily for H, his very last client before retirement, an old lag named Maurice has hatched a daring plan to hijack a planeful of loot. Intent on going straight for the sake of his grandkids, Maurice hands over all details about the job to H - he can take it or leave it.

Reluctant at first, H soon warms to the idea as he discovers a life of bingo and tea dances in some forgotten backwater is not for him.

Now all he has to do is find a plane, some willing accomplices and a wad of cash to get the scheme off the ground. Armed with his catchphrase "wealth is freedom," H sets about recruiting from his fellow inmates and soon has a collection of very unlikely geriatric usual suspects at his disposal.

Alan McQueen's self-assured and witty tone keeps the reader hooked throughout and there are plenty of surprises along the way as the plot gathers momentum.

I was only sorry it had to come to an end but happily, Alan has just finished a second novel, The Self Preservation Society, and plans are also afoot for a sequel to H's story.

The Summervale Volunteers by Alan McQueen is published by Authorhouse. --Watford OBSERVER


Product Description

THE SUMMERVALE VOLUNTEERS SYNOPSIS Barrister Alan Hitchcock is put out to grass by his firm, his wife and his children. A lifetime’s work all for nothing. His circumstances lead him to a room at SummerVale, retirement home for the elderly. The last ‘lag’ he defends tells him a story about the perfect job he never got to do. ‘H’, as the lawyer is known, can’t get this story out of his mind while adjusting to his new life. At SummerVale he finds a group of like-minded people, discarded, disillusioned, downtrodden but not yet dead. He galvanises these old people into raising their expectations and convinces them that they can have a happy, wealthy retirement if only they can pull off a daring robbery! The scam involves diverting a small plane, landing another in its place and stealing the ill-gotten gains of rich people who use this route to escape paying tax on their money and possessions by smuggling their wealth to a Swiss tax haven. A robbery without violence, stealing from people who won’t go to the police to complain. A robbery by O.A.P’s. Who would ever believe it?