Low Tide at Cross Keys

About this book

Eight centuries after King John lost his baggage train in the Wash, the sea has taken the land back. The fens are a sealed salvage zone, and their people live by a points ledger in grey Midland towns. Ambrose Tull is fifty-eight. He used to be a pump engineer, his knee is ruined, and he sorts donated shoes in Corby. Everyone in town knows him as the man who still believes the tide will give King John's treasure back. Then an autumn storm surge scours the sands at Cross Keys, and the salvage company starts flying its drones over the place he has studied for thirty years. Ambrose has one chance and almost nothing to work with: a box of his father's silver coins, and a disgraced drone pilot who has just lost her licence and needs money badly. Together they set out into the drowned country, ahead of the patrols and the tide.