Excerpt from All the Lonely People by Mike Gayle, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The man stood for a moment, back held straight, unsmiling, eyes fixed on Hubert, regarding him with a mixture of curiosity and disdain.

"Can I help you?"

"Me looking for Mr. Coulthard."

The man grimaced. This was clearly the wrong answer.

"You are, are you? And who might you be, then?"

Hubert reached into his pocket and took out the sodden, barely-hanging-together piece of paper the clerk at the Labor Exchange had given him and handed it over. The man's lips, already pursed, narrowed grimly as he alternated between studying the note and Hubert. Finally he squeezed the drenched missive into a tight ball and said, partly to Hubert, but mostly to himself: "That lot are bloody useless."

Hubert didn't know how to react to this. He assumed the man was talking about the Labor Exchange but couldn't be sure. The one thing he was positive about, however, was that if this fellow didn't let him inside soon, he was sure to die of hypothermia.

The man stroked his mustache pensively.

"The lads are not going to like this. They are not going to like this at all."

He regarded Hubert carefully.

"You done this line of work before?"

Hubert nodded, even though he wasn't entirely sure what the job entailed.

"And anything new me can pick up real quick. Me is a fast learner."

The man pulled a face. "I think I'll be the judge of that. You're West Indian, I take it?"

"Yes, sir, from Jamaica."

"And you're a hard worker?"

"Yes, sir, my mother brought me up to always give my best."

Excerpted from All the Lonely People by Mike Gayle. Copyright © 2022 by Mike Gayle. Excerpted by permission of Grand Central Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.