Alasdair McPherson

Damaged Lives Alasdair McPherson

The six novellas in DAMAGED LIVES recount stories of staff and clients at a Glasgow nursing home for very rich pensioners. Henry opened the home as an up-market brothel after World War II, but changed the use when his clients began to talk more about their ailments than their conquests. He waits too long to choose his Great-Grand Nephew Kenneth as his successor, supplying five-star luxury at exorbitant prices. In GHOST STORY, he has to haunt the young man into finding his hidden inheritance. When the Reverend McKelvie thrashes his daughter because as a woman she is ADAM'S BURDEN, he unwittingly unleashes a dominatrix who brings her contempt for men into the nursing home. She is encouraged by Heloise Bouchard, nee Louise McVey, who plays MIND GAMES to thwart Kenneth's plans. These plans endanger the chef who in HIDE AND SEEK tells how he witnessed a drug inspired massacre. Kenneth is slow to realise that the underlying purpose of the nursing home is to provide SECOND CHANCES for people damaged by life. When his new right-hand man runs into trouble with his family, Kenneth helps to reconcile them, finally accepting Henry's mantle as a modern Robin Hood. He restores a Coptic Christian to his church after he was smuggled out of Egypt when he avenged the murder of his fiancée by a Muslim police inspector, thus freeing him to drive the nursing home's luxury coach, ironically dubbed the CHARABANC.