A coming-of-age story about a Canadian hockey player set adrift in 1970s London who finds himself in the middle of one of the UK's most turbulent eras. Set in London in the 1970s, Rag & Bone Man is a picaresque chronicle of a man trying to put his life back together. Rob Hendershot is a Canadian who went to England to play professional hockey. Now that career is on hold. His battered body is recovering from hockey games, and street fights in the downtrodden back alleys of London. His roommate is an 83-year-old pensioner whose hobby is shadowing IRA terrorists, real or imagined. Hendershot also works as an artist's model posing as a modern day Beowulf for the attractive and mesmerizing artist, Margaret Lowenstein.

Rag & Bone Man follows Hendershot as he struggles to find a way out of his situation. To keep boredom at bay he joins his geriatric roommate in his quest to uncover IRA terrorists - a breadcrumb trail that seems to lead back to the enigmatic Margaret. And all of it seems to be working until the day everything spins radically out of control, with unexpected and far-reaching consequences.

With humour and wit, Governor General's Award nominee, Don Dickinson pulls readers into the rich world of London of 1974 with a colourful cast of mystifying characters, a reluctant hero, and tantalizing intrigue.

Don Dickinson is the author of two short story collections, Fighting the Upstream (Oberon Press) and Blue Husbands (Porcupine’s Quill; nominated for the Governor General’s Award; winner of the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize); and two novels, The Crew (Coteau Books; nominated for the Books in Canada First Novel Award) and Robbiestime (Harper-Collins). His stories have appeared in anthologies both in Canada and abroad.

For seven years he travelled widely, working jobs as varied as labourer, fitness instructor, and shepherd. He later taught high school and university English courses for over twenty years. Married with three children, he lives with his wife in Lillooet, BC.

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