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The Dead Don’t Bleed

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Brought to you by Penguin.

A gritty and vivid interrogation of one family's empire of violence

Frank Bridge turned his back on his family's gangland conflicts in Northumberland decades ago. He fell in love, went to university, and is now writing a book on the Spanish poet Lorca. When his father, the violent patriarch, dies, he decides to face the past and returns to Spain to carry out his research, and perhaps reconcile with his erstwhile brother Gordon, who lives on absconded gang money in a villa on the Costas.

However, whilst Frank has been changed by twenty five years apart, Gordon still holds on to the rage and terror of a life of crime. From the doomed coalfields of northeast England to the beaches of Spain, the two brothers fight with each other, and themselves, to overcome their family’s legacy.

© Neil Rollinson 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

Critics Review

This dangerous delight is what happens when one of Britain’s best poets marries Lorca’s landscapes and 1970s gangland Newcastle in fiction — a thrilling, deep-song, high-proof novel that’s brilliantly imagined, gorgeously crafted and several cuts above the usual debut
Sarah Hall
Throw Sexy Beast and Get Carter in a blender, add some Lorcanian duende from blasted blood-drenched Spain and some of that soul-sadness from the sodden, post-industrial far north of England, and you'll get something like this gripping, compelling, elegiac and dismayed novel. Savage, sorrowful, superb
Niall Griffiths
Marrying the violence, duende and scouring light of Lorca's Andalusia to the broken bottles and police sirens of 1970s Newcastle, this compelling, beautifully written story of male heartbreak slyly explores the way poetry helps you survive your past
Ruth Padel
The Dead Don’t Bleed is vivid, lyrical and propulsive. Each scene feels charged: a current of violence crackles throughout. Every sentence, every word, is in its rightful place
Malachy Tallack

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