Rory Connor was a gambling man and he had a gambler’s luck. From the day he was born, his mother had known that Rory would be the one to make something of his life. At seven years old he was earning money from odd jobs and by fourteen, he was in full-time work. By the time he was nineteen, he had escaped the factory to become a rent-collector. Now at twenty-three, with his ambition in full flow, he was always looking to bigger and better games to play. He feared nothing and nobody, not even the unscrupulous landlord he collected for. For an ordinary working lad, he was doing well – until one day, his luck changed and suddenly, things did not go as smoothly as he was used to...
Author
Catherine Cookson was born in Tyne Dock, the illegitimate daughter of a poverty-stricken woman, Kate, who Catherine believed was her older sister. Catherine began work in service but eventually moved south to Hastings, where she met and married Tom Cookson, a local grammar-school master. Although she was originally acclaimed as a regional writer - her novel The Round Tower won the Winifred Holtby Award for the best regional novel of 1968 - her readership quickly spread throughout the world, and her many best-selling novels established her as one of the most popular contemporary woman novelist. She received an OBE in 1985, was created a Dame of the British Empire in 1993, and was appointed an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford, in 1997. For many years she lived near Newcastle upon Tyne.
