John Harvey: Nick's Blues (UK 2008)

From the Publisher:
Four days after Nick Harman's seventh birthday, his father climbed onto a bridge high above four lanes of traffic, paused, then threw himself to his death on the road below. That was a little over nine years ago. Today Nick was sixteen. The clock alongside his bed read 7:59.

Nick lives with his mother on a tough housing estate in north London. On his sixteenth birthday, his mother gives him a box of things left by his father all those years ago. The contents lead Nick to try and discover what led his father from being a successful blues singer to the point where he took his own life.

Against a background of shifting allegiances, involving both the violent gangs on the estate and his first serious involvement with a girl, Nick is forced to come to terms, not only with who his father was but who he is himself.

John Harvey: Nick's Blues. A Novel. Five Leaves, ISBN: 1905512465 (July, 2008), 168 p., £5.99.