A Distant Banner — Roy Lewis

Henry Jones ought to have been good for something more than working as a scaffolder on a building site. He had a degree, the
offer of a job, a girl-friend only too eager to settle down to Welsh respectability. Yet he deliberately turned aside. Instead, he worked with O'Hara, violent and drunken; Davies, a drifter; Thomas, untrustworthy; Tommy Williams, deformed and universally disliked. And all of them in a state of running warfare with the foreman, a tough, hard¬working Tynesider with a special down on their group.

When one of them was murdered, it soon became evident that there had been consider¬able organized pilfering from the site. Willy-nilly, Henry was coerced by Inspector Morgan into unofficially working for the police. What was the nature of the racket that had been going on? Who was behind it? The unscrupulous, lecherous local club owner, whose receptionist lived with O'Hara but who went nowhere near the site? Was the murder the result of sexual jealousy, or the result of thieves falling out?

The solution, dramatic and unexpected, forced Henry to take a long, hard look at the truth - about himself, about his way of life and his fellow workers.