The joyful and life-affirming new novel from the co-creator of Gavin and Stacey and the Richard and Judy Book Club author of Love Untold.
Linda and Levi will never meet. But they’re going to change each other’s lives.
In her role at the council’s Unclaimed Heirs Unit, Linda Standish investigates the lives of those who’ve died alone and tracks down any living relatives. She’s been a friend to the friendless for the past thirty-three years. And now she’s looking forward to an early retirement.
But before she hangs up her lanyard, Linda must take on one last case – that of Levi Norman Jones – a Welshman who’d made his home on a remote Scottish island for the past five years.
What brought Levi here? And who did he leave behind? Obliged to travel (by hearse) with her arch nemesis Fergus Murray, and helped (and hindered) by the eccentric local residents, Linda searches for clues to a life now lost. And in the process unexpectedly makes new friends, and discovers things about herself she never knew.
Ruth Jones MBE is well known for her television writing, most notably BBC One’s Gavin and Stacey, co-written with James Corden, in which she plays the incorrigible Nessa Jenkins. Ruth also created and co-wrote Sky One’s Stella, which ran for six series between 2012 and 2017, in which she played the eponymous role. She has starred in several other television comedies and dramas, including Hattie, Nighty Night and Saxondale. In 2024 Ruth returned to the stage, making her West End debut as Mother Superior in Sister Act the Musical. Her most recent role is that of private investigator Elena Ravenscroft in the adaptation of Harlan Coben’s Run Away for Netflix.
