Not that Davies brothers Ray and Dave would appreciate the analogy being devout Arsenal supporters, but there are similarities to be made between The Kinks and Tottenham Hotspur during the years from 1966 to 1974.
Up to the point the timeframe begins, at various points through the 1960s both had been hugely successful and impressively progressive, coming up with innovations taken on by imitators while earning admiration from those who enjoyed music or modern football infused with flair and finesse.
If, for the sake of this tenuous connection the onward journey begins in the summer of 1966, they start from different places but along the way find the road converges. In the eight years to come Spurs would win four trophies with The Kinks responsible for four landmark rock records – ‘Something Else‘/’The Village Green Preservation Society‘/’Arthur‘ and ‘Muswell Hillbillies‘ all ranking among the greatest LP’s ever recorded.
Yet there never looked the remotest chance of the league title coming to be paraded around White Hart Lane, just as those nearby musical maestros from Muswell Hill always fell a long way short of the number one album spot. By the mid-70s both looked aimless and adrift, neither truly back in clover until the 1980s arrived.
Indeed, as 1974 came to close a sense of inertia had taken hold on the Tottenham High Road and down the way in N10, Spurs and The Kinks stuck with roughly the same state of affairs, thin spots becoming the norm, highlights increasingly few and far between.
The eight years to have just ended began with twelve months when to the world at large The Kinks were riding high, 1966 brilliantly captured in satirical singles such as ‘Dedicated Follower of Fashion‘ and ‘Mr. Pleasant‘ that took a sardonic view of ‘Swinging London.’ The songwriting of Ray Davies in writing songs so English in their narrative had in part been shaped by the band being banned from the United States for the foreseeable future, this after a chaotic US tour the previous year.
Spurs meanwhile, after a trophy leaden start to the decade, found themselves absent from European competition for a third consecutive season as 1966-67 dawned. The great league and FA Cup ‘double’ side of 1960-61 had broken up and neither were there many survivors from the victorious 1962-63 Cup Winners’ Cup line-up when Spurs became the first British club to win a European competition – a triumph that had come to represent their last honour.
Long-serving manager and former player Bill Nicholson (born Scarborough 26/1/1919 and member of their 1950-51 league championship winning team), had invested heavily in rebuilding the team after the first wave of trophies broke, paying big money for Scottish striker Alan Gilzean (Dundee), midfielder Alan Mullery who made the short trip in joining from Fulham, while in the summer of 1966 he paid Blackburn Rovers £95,000 (then a British record for a defender) for Welsh international centre-half Mike England.
They were incorporated into a team that contained remaining ‘double’ winners Dave Mackay, who still reigned as an imposing figure and winger Cliff Jones, the attack led by the most prolific top flight goal scorer of his, or any other era for that matter – the consistency of Jimmy Greaves a cast iron guarantee of, at least, twenty goals a season. As a last line of defence they had twenty-one year-old Northern Ireland goalkeeper Pat Jennings who was rapidly closing in on world-class status, this array of talent needing to quickly secure silverware again if Spurs were to remain among the elite.
In the three seasons to have passed since Tottenham last tasted success, Everton, Liverpool and Manchester United had emerged as dominant forces, Leeds were forging a reputation as the coming men, West Ham had won a domestic and European trophy, an exciting Chelsea team were on the up – and as yet nobody had given any thought to what recently promoted Manchester City might be on the verge of under the guidance of Joe Mercer and coach Malcolm Allison.
Indeed, to use Kinks parlance of the time, White Hart Lane needed a sunny afternoon or two in order to save it from becoming dead end street.
SAMTIMONIOUS.com duly takes up a metaphorical place on the Paxton Road End to view what transpired……….
1966-67: Division One (3rd – 56 pts); FA Cup – winners; League Cup (second round); Top scorer – Jimmy Greaves (31);
In a season of marked improvement, Spurs finished five places higher than the previous campaign, accruing their biggest points tally since the ‘double’ season. The present and future aligned in front of Jennings as a recognised back four of full-backs Joe Kinnear and Cyril Knowles along with central defenders England and Phil Beal began to emerge – five players who between them would play over a thousand first team games.
An impressive start yielded eight wins and a draw from the first eleven league matches where Greaves and Gilzean shared fourteen goals – the only real set-back of the opening two months being an early League Cup exit at West Ham.
But early promise fluttered away like autumn leaves from the trees, as an abysmal run of form through October and November returned just one point from twelve, including those dropped to Aston Villa and Blackpool, (both of whom would be relegated by some distance), Spurs continuing in hit and miss mode though to the early weeks of 1967.
Two weeks into the new year a 1-0 reversal against eventual champions Manchester United was a third league defeat in the last six outings, yet in its wake came a consistency, particularly in regard to league games, Spurs thereafter would find hard to replicate.
That Old Trafford loss proved the final game they lost in the entire season, Tottenham going through to the finish line with eleven wins and five draws (incorporating a run of seven straight league victories) from their last sixteen outings. At the same time they were also making comfortable FA Cup progress, reaching a Hillsborough semi-final against title challengers Nottingham Forest without facing top division opposition along the way (only Manchester United and Forest were now above them in the league).
Their rich vein of form was enough to see them through to Wembley as goals from Greaves and Frank Saul brought victory by the odd goal in three, Spurs prevailing by the same margin in the first all-London FA Cup Final on Saturday 20 May 1967 – Saul and Scottish winger Jimmy Robertson scoring the goals that saw the trophy head to White Hart Lane for the first time since 1962, thus ending a silverware hiatus that had begun three years before.
While one enclave of North London felt joyful and triumphant in celebrating Spurs’ latest major cup success, there was no less acclaim being felt in another, The Kinks having just had a hit with the serene ‘Waterloo Sunset‘ since described by noted rock critic Robert Christgau as ‘the most beautiful song in the English language.’
The previous year Ray Davies had written a Kinks masterpiece entitled ‘Where Have All The Good Times Gone?‘ – for the Cockerels and The Kinks they were here and now.
1967-68: Division One – 7th (47 pts); FA Cup – fifth round; European Cup Winners’ Cup – second round; League Cup – did not enter; Top Scorer – Jimmy Greaves (29);
While some embraced the Summer of Love through ‘Sgt Pepper‘ or flower-power others were completely smitten by two remarkable football fixtures involving Spurs before the season had even begun.
On Saturday 5 August they travelled to Hampden Park in order to face Celtic in a game to commemorate the centenary of Queens Park Football Club, Tottenham sharing six goals against the side who ten weeks earlier had become the first British team to lift the European Cup.
Seven days later they headed north again although this time only as far as Old Trafford to contest the Charity Shield in the annual season curtain-raiser between the league champions and FA Cup holders. In the greatest game in the history of the fixture (and leading contender for best domestic match of the decade), Manchester United and Tottenham produced a 3-3 draw for the ages – this humdinger of a contest distinguished by a goal from Jennings whose long clearance took a one-bounce journey over the head of his opposite number Alex Stepney.
Pre-season, however, was a microcosm of the nine months to come – lots of goals scored, plenty conceded, entertainment aplenty, but overall inconsistency reigned.
Three wins and a draw from the first four games (including a 5-1 Upton Park whacking of West Ham), bode well, but with the fifth a pattern began to emerge, Spurs being thumped by the same score at Burnley.
Losing 4-0 at Highbury put a crimp in September and while Hadjuk Split were easily overcome in round one of the Cup Winners’ Cup during the same month, few in N17 felt very festive following a second round December exit at the hands of Olympique Lyonnais, Spurs winning the second-leg 4-3 but going out on away goals by virtue of a 1-0 defeat in France.
With the departure from Europe coming amidst a six match winless league run, Nicholson reacted by paying a club record £125,000 fee for twenty two year old Southampton striker Martin Chivers (wide man Saul moving in the opposite direction as part of the deal). The England U-23 forward made an immediate impact in scoring on his home debut and shortly afterward netted a brace against Manchester United as Spurs began their defence of the FA Cup at Old Trafford – that 2-2 draw followed by victory with a Robertson goal in the White Hart Lane replay, the two ties watched by over 120,000 spectators.
Chivers also scored in round four as Spurs, indebted to a two contribution goal from Greaves, beat visiting Preston 3-1, the fifth round pairing them with Liverpool who secured a 1-1 draw in North London before knocking the holders out with a 2-1 win on Merseyside.
Going out of the FA Cup at least brought some late season lustre to their league performances, five wins and two draws on the back of being eliminated, (including a four match winning streak that produced sixteen goals and only two conceded), suggested a push for the top four was underway only for familiar failings to return – two wins, four defeats and a draw from the final seven games reflective of a season that promised far more than it delivered.
1968-69: Division One – 6th (47 pts); FA Cup – sixth round; League Cup – semi-final; Top scorer – Jimmy Greaves (36);
It would require a scholar with a masters degree in applied Spursism to make true sense of this perplexing campaign. Finishing a league place higher than last time out but with two fewer points, lengthy runs in both domestic cups, the top scorer in Division One hitting the net for fun, but in the end no honours or European qualification to show for it.
As the saying goes, it was all very Spurs.
An opening day home loss to their nearest and sneerest set things off on the wrong foot, this despite Greaves scoring the first of his twenty seven league goals during a 2-1 North London derby defeat. Stumbling along in recording just one win from the first six, things took a dramatic upturn when Burnley were thrashed 7-0 at the Lane, a result that ushered in a seven match unbeaten trot – the run coming to an end at Maine Road where they received a 4-0 drubbing off Manchester City.
Things were righted with a 2-1 home win over Liverpool the following week, but losing successive games to Southampton and Wolves as the year drew to a close only served to underline just how erratic they had become.
December once again brought a dispiriting cup exit, this one far harder to bear as it took the form of a two-leg 2-1 aggregate League Cup semi-final reversal against Arsenal (who would suffer a surprise 3-1 defeat against third division Swindon Town in the final). New year FA Cup progress coincided with a marked improvement in league fortunes, Spurs arriving at Maine Road for a March quarter-final on the back of a nine game unbeaten run.
In the event City, the eventual cup winners, won through with a goal from Francis Lee. Afterward Tottenham extended their undefeated league sequence by another three games taking it to nine, the run coming to an end with a home defeat to Arsenal, who were on course to finish above Spurs for the only time during the 1960s – some consolation, perhaps, for the Davies brothers who saw The Kinks 1969 opus ‘Arthur‘ (or the Fall and Decline of the British Empire) sink without trace.
1969-70: Division One – 11th (43 pts); FA Cup – fourth round; League Cup – second round; Top scorer(s) – Jimmy Greaves/Martin Chivers (11);
If the previous season had been one of frustration, then the latest only served to emphaise how Spurs were diminishing. To make matters worse London rivals were leaving them behind in the pursuit of honours, the King’s Road in raptures as Chelsea landed the FA Cup while Arsenal ended a trophy famine going back to the days of post-war ration books by lifting the Inter-City Fairs Cup.
By way of irony, Spurs would finish one place above the Gunners, but coming to rest in eleventh with their smallest points tally since Nicholson became manager eleven years before, offered little to feel good about. But from nine months of torpor and transition would emerge the path to renewed glory.
If the departure of Dave Mackay, the last ‘double’ winner still on the books, to Derby County in August 1969 marked the end of a chapter, then on the field the present day Spurs continued on in fitful manner, three wins, two losses and a draw a typically fluctuating start to a season.
By mid-September they had gone out of the League Cup, been thrashed at Manchester City, won by the odd-goal in five at Highbury and conceded five without reply at Derby – that battering at the Baseball Ground setting in motion a five match streak that produced just two points.
If the emergence of industrious young midfielder Steve Perryman brought hope for the future, there was precious little else to enthuse over as Spurs lurched from classy one week to clueless the next, things finally coming to a head on going out of the FA Cup in late January 1970.
Having needed a replay to overcome third division Bradford City, in round four Crystal Palace (promoted to Division One at the end of the previous season), on forcing a replay progressed at Spurs’ expense with a 2-1 victory at Selhurst Park.
It was a watershed defeat. Greaves was dropped for the next game (a 1-0 loss at Southampton) and never selected for the starting XI again, having scored the last of his 268 goals in a nine season Spurs career against visiting Derby on January 10.
In March he was included in the £200,000 deal when Nicholson moved to sign 1966 World Cup winner and current England international Martin Peters from West Ham, Greaves (valued at £50,000) moving to Upton Park in the process. In his absence Spurs carried on in perfunctory manner, successive home wins an agreeable way to end a fraught season – the latter particularly welcome in being over Arsenal, who three days before had won the Fairs Cup, the Highbury side suddenly in possession of a major trophy far more recently than their North London rivals.
1970-71: Division One – 3rd (52 pts); FA Cup – sixth round; League Cup – winners; Top scorer – Martin Chivers (33);
For a season that needed to be significantly better than the last the initial portents were not good, two wins from the first seven league matches more representative of old failings than new dawn. But eight wins and two draws from the next ten represented the rise in fortunes Nicholson had been waiting for, his laudable policy of giving young players an opportunity to the fore again with the autumn debut of teenage winger Jimmy Neighbour – who joined a senior squad including the likes of John Pratt, Ray Evans, Terry Naylor, Jimmy Pearce and Peter Collins, each of whom had taken their first team bow in the past eighteen months.
While their league form went off the boil as the winter weather took hold, Spurs avoided any mishaps in the League Cup (not so the Texaco Cup where they dumped out by Motherwell) and by mid-December were through to a two-leg semi-final against second division Bristol City.
After playing out a draw at a 1-1 draw at Ashton Gate, where Gilzean was on target, a week later on December 23, goals from Chivers (his latest in a prolific season) and winger Pearce saw Tottenham through to their first League Cup Final – where on February 27 1971 Chivers netted twice in a 2-0 Wembley win over third division Aston Villa as Spurs not only lifted their first trophy in four years, but secured an overdue return to Europe for the following season.
Their FA Cup progress was again halted by Liverpool, who won a White Hart Lane replay in advancing to the quarter-finals (they would eventually reach the final), but in the final two months of the season Spurs would emerge unbeaten from twelve of their remaining thirteen league encounters – the solitary reversal a galling home defeat to Arsenal on May 3 whose only goal victory took the league title to Highbury.
Five days later they emulated Spurs’ 1960-61 achievement of completing the double by defeating Liverpool in the FA Cup Final – which emphasised just how crucial winning the League Cup had been, Tottenham joining Arsenal and Cup Winners’ Cup victors in the silverware stakes, making sure White Hart Lane along with Highbury and Stamford Bridge would be hosting European matches when the 1971-72 season rolled around.
1971-72: Division One – 6th (51 pts); FA Cup – sixth round; League Cup – semi-finals; UEFA Cup – winners; Top scorer – Martin Chivers (39);
As if to confirm their return as a trophy winning outfit, Spurs turned up just about everywhere in a marathon 68-game season that took in jaunts right across Europe and lengthy runs in both home front competitions – the upshot being two prizes and praise for some of the most attractive football around.
During a campaign that would take in several far-flung spots, it was somewhat ironic their travels should begin and end in Wolverhampton – coming from two down on the opening day to claim a point, crucially scoring twice again at Molineux nine months later when a European trophy was on the line.
From earning a 2-2 draw at Wolves, Spurs went through the next three league games unbeaten before coming badly unstuck at Manchester City, beginning a trait that would see them on average through the season, lose every fifth league game.
But in cup competitions it was pretty much plain sailing. Winning the League Cup had secured entry into the fledgling UEFA Cup (an upgrade on the Fairs Cup), and by the time Christmas decorations were going up they had overcome opposition from Iceland, France and Romania to clinch a quarter-final place.
In fact Spurs had claimed a piece of silverware before September was out, beating Torino home and away to lift the Anglo-Italian Cup – although they would no doubt have swapped it for a successful defence of the League Cup, their attempt at which came to grief against Chelsea who made it through to Wembley (where they would lose to Stoke City) by a 4-3 aggregate margin, giving White Hart Lane a sober start to the new year.
By the time the UEFA Cup resumed in March, Spurs, while outside the title chasing contingent were motoring along nicely in sixth and through to the FA Cup quarter-finals, ultimately breaking even in their efforts to move forward on both fronts. On travelling to Elland Road they went down 2-1 to eventual cup winners Leeds, but defeated UT Arad of Romania to progress in Europe.
In the last four they drew Italian giants AC Milan, who encountered a Tottenham team running into peak form. Perryman netted twice as they managed a 2-1 first-leg home game win, a narrow victory which began a nine match undefeated run that carried Spurs through to the end of the season.
By the time they fought out a 1-1 draw in the San Siro, where their place in an all-England final against Wolves was booked with a goal from skipper Mullery, Spurs had gained revenge for the League Cup semi-final defeat against Chelsea by demolishing the same opponents at a packed White Hart Lane – that 3-0 triumph also notable for a goal by England international midfielder Ralph Coates, who scored his first league goal in Tottenham colours following a £190,000 move from Burnley the previous summer.
The icing on the cake of a satisfactory league season came with a 2-0 victory at Highbury in the final game, the win on Arsenal turf falling between the two-leg UEFA Cup Final against Wolves – Spurs, thanks to a high class brace from Chivers already 2-1 up in the tie when making the short trek across North London, having won at Molineux eight days before.
In the White Hart Lane return on May 17, Mullery was again on hand to score a vital goal and despite Wolves coming back to level, Spurs saw their way safely to a 1-1 draw, duly becoming the first English club to win two different European trophies – and in the process sealing a return to Europe for the following season.
1972-73: Division One – 8th (45 pts); FA Cup – fifth round; League Cup – winners; UEFA Cup – semi-finals; Top scorer – Martin Chivers (33);
If the previous campaign had been an arduous, if eventually triumphant slog, then the one to follow was a near as dammit replica with another high number of matches and plentiful instances of sparkling football. Interchangeable achievements in the League and UEFA Cups brought more for the Lane to celebrate, even if there was a drop off in league form.
With younger players such as Pratt and Phil Holder challenging for a midfield berth, Mullery was allowed to rejoin previous club Fulham in the summer of 1972, Nicholson in turn handing the captaincy to Peters who thrived in the role – not least when he scored all four goals in a 4-1 October win over Manchester United, Spurs registering their eighth win of the season at Old Trafford having lost five and drawn two of their fifteen league games to date.
League form might have remained patchy but progression in pre-Christmas cup fixtures was straightforward enough, opponents from Norway, Greece and Yugoslavia safely overcome as Spurs went about defending the UEFA Cup, while December also brought the, by now customary League Cup semi-final double header – Wolves again unable to halt a Tottenham trophy march, losing out by a 4-3 aggregate margin as Spurs reached the final for the second time in three seasons.
With Chivers, an established England regular at this point, maintaining an impressive strike rate, Spurs on the back of an FA Cup fourth round defeat to Derby, discovered their most potent form of the season.
In the midst of a ten game unbeaten run they accounted for Norwich City in the League Cup Final where a goal from Coates, on the field as substitute for the injured Pratt, enabled them to become the first side to win the competition twice. Spurs also proved too good for Portuguese outfit Vitoria Setubal in the UEFA Cup quarter finals, but chances of contesting another all-England final were dashed when they were paired with Liverpool in the last four.
Coming up against the league leaders three times in three weeks, the first meeting, a league encounter on the final day of March (once described by someone present to your genial host at SAMTIMONIOUS.com as ‘that time Tottenham came to Anfield with just a goalkeeper‘) saw Jennings produce one of his all-time great displays – and in saving two penalties in a 1-1 draw on Merseyside assured himself of the ‘Footballer of the Year‘ award a month later.
Unfortunately for Spurs they had relinquished their hold on the UEFA Cup before April was out. Unable to go better than a 2-1 win at White Hart Lane, two goals from Peters being to no avail as they had suffered a 1-0 first-leg Anfield defeat – Liverpool, who would complete a league and UEFA Cup double, going through on away goals.
But with a return to Europe assured and only three defeats in their last nineteen fixtures of the campaign, Tottenham could look forward to improving their league standing next time out. All things being equal this talented, highly experienced group of players also appeared to have a cup challenge or two left in them – yet days when the equilibrium of the club was about to be disturbed were drawing near.
1973-74: Division One 11th (42 points); FA Cup – third round: League Cup – second round; UEFA Cup – beaten finalists; Top scorer – Martin Chivers (23);
Hopes that routinely excellent cup performances would finally appear on a weekly basis in order to propel a title challenge vanished in the treatment room as much as on the pitch amidst a beleaguered opening to the new season. Stalwart defenders England, Kinnear and Knowles all spent time on the sidelines while long-term injuries ended the careers of Pearce and Collins at relatively young ages.
Given they were notoriously slow starters, the first two months of the campaign were pedestrian even by Tottenham standards. The 2-0 North London derby home win in mid-October offered respite during a misfiring start, by which time the holders had already departed the League Cup in losing a second round tie at Division One newcomers QPR, three league wins from the first eleven matches the stuff of relegation rather than elation.
By the turn of the year and with over half the league programme gone, Spurs had just six wins to their name, under-achievement the way of things as their FA Cup interest began and ended with a third round defeat at Leicester City.
The only ray of light thus far was steady UEFA Cup advancement, several otherwise lacklustre performances offset by eliminating decent opposition in Grasshoppers Zurich, Aberdeen and Dynamo Tbilisi. With FC Cologne awaiting in the last eight, spring brought belated notice of just how good Tottenham could be when roused, a nine match unbeaten gallop that included victory at Highbury through a goal from Gilzean, finally hoisting them into the top half.
The run was over when the quarter-final West German opposition were overcome with a minimum of fuss, although any notion of booking a place in Europe for next term through a lofty league finish crumbled away in the midst of six games that yielded just five points – increasing the need to win the UEFA Cup in order to secure the European football Nicholson always craved.
It came another step closer when Lokomotive Leipzig, who had already disposed of Wolves and Ipswich Town, were beaten home and away in the semi-finals and with a place in their fourth major cup final in four years now assured, Spurs finished the most middling league season it was possible to have with 14 wins, 14 draws and 14 defeats – their 42 points accrued from the same number of games.
Five points taken from the last six enabled a mid-table, eleventh-placed finish, Chivers scoring twice in the last three matches to take his tally for the season to a commendable 23, this while his international career had effectively ended with failure by England to qualify for the 1974 World Cup – the Tottenham striker substituted on the night Poland earned the point they needed at Wembley in October 1973 to ensure their place at the forthcoming tournament in West Germany.
Standing between Spurs and more UEFA Cup glory were Dutch side Feyenoord, the 1970 European champions arriving at White Hart Lane on Wednesday 21st May. Twice the visitors trailed (Spurs netting through England and an own goal), but each time hit back to level, earning a deserved 2-2 draw with goals from Wim van Hanegem and Theo de Jong.
Sadly, the second-leg at the De Kuip stadium in Rotterdam a week later would become most remembered for several violent disturbances involving Spurs supporters rather than the free-flowing football of an accomplished home side, for whom Dutch internationals Wim Rijsbergen and Peter Ressel scored in the 2-0 victory that established a 4-2 aggregate triumph.
The crowd disorder inside the ground was at its worst during the interval and became so ugly Nicholson was asked by UEFA officials to appeal via the stadium PA system for the offending element to behave, a disheartening task for a manager renowned for his propriety to undertake. The episode had a lasting and altogether negative effect on the Spurs boss for whom it became a turning point, the inference clear when he ruefully reflected on changing times in spending the break pleading with rioting fans rather than talking to the team.
By 1974 Spurs were by no means the only club in England to have a hooligan issue, terrace battles now commonplace in the domestic game, but for the first time the continent had been subjected to the problem. As a result Spurs, the first English club to win a European trophy and first to reach three finals in Europe, became the first to be handed a ban from UEFA, receiving a 12 month suspension from European competition.
In the aftermath of such a chastening experience – Spurs had also lost a cup final for the first time in their history – ahead of the new season Nicholson paid Rangers £150,000 for midfielder Alfie Conn. Yet personal misgivings regarding his own suitability to manage a high profile club as football advanced into the mid-70s persisted. Despite undoubted devotion to the cause, when an atrocious start to 1974-75 manifested in a 4-0 League Cup thumping at Middlesbrough on September 12 1974, Nicholson resigned amid rumours of dressing room unrest.
Openly stating he no longer commanded respect from some of the players in his charge, it was an unedifying end to a 16-year tenure through which, when it came to putting trophies on the mantelpiece, Nicholson had been the most successful manager in the English game – Spurs under the command of his successor Terry Neill managing to avoid relegation at the end of a calamitous season by the skin of their teeth.
In April 1975, when Spurs were limping along to their lowest placed finish since 1956, Arsenal devotees Ray and Dave Davies were recording ‘Soap Opera‘ The Kinks latest album. While in no way an intended allusion to goings on in N17, a slew of negative reviews could be double-speak for what was happening there.
The critic who labelled it ‘dreary and humdrum‘ might inadvertently been predicting the immediate future at White Hart Lane – things becoming worse still for Spurs and The Kinks before the corner was finally turned…….
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NEIL SAMBROOK is the author of ‘MONTY’S DOUBLE‘ – an acclaimed thriller available as an Amazon Kindle book and now in paperback.