The Dead Don't Bleed
Published on 8. January 2026
Book
Hardback
192 pages
978-1-78733-536-3 (ISBN)
Description
Two brothers confront each other and themselves to overcome their family legacy, from the doomed coalfields of north-east England to sun-bleached southern Spain
'Thrilling and brilliantly imagined' SARAH HALL
'Extraordinarily tense and tender' GUARDIAN
Frank Bridge turned his back on his family's gangland conflicts in Northumberland decades ago. His brother, Gordon, fled to Spain and has not been heard from since. Frank's life has taken a different path to the same place: he fell in love with Lorca's poetry and the woman who brought it to him.
But when their gangster father, the head of their savage dynasty, dies, Frank feels he must track down Gordon and tell him that their father's reign of terror is over. Can Frank's appearance after twenty-five years prompt a truce - a reconciliation even - will his arrival merely be the catalyst for more turmoil and brutality? Beneath the scorching, pitiless Andalusian sun, the two brothers are finally brought together for one last reckoning.
'Terse, bloody and vivid' THE TIMES
'A pleasingly thoughtful and atmospheric crime caper' DAILY TELEGRAPH
'Savage, sorrowful, superb' NIALL GRIFFITHS
'Vivid, lyrical and propulsive' MALACHY TALLACK
'A compelling, beautifully written story of male heartbreak' RUTH PADEL
'Thrilling and brilliantly imagined' SARAH HALL
'Extraordinarily tense and tender' GUARDIAN
Frank Bridge turned his back on his family's gangland conflicts in Northumberland decades ago. His brother, Gordon, fled to Spain and has not been heard from since. Frank's life has taken a different path to the same place: he fell in love with Lorca's poetry and the woman who brought it to him.
But when their gangster father, the head of their savage dynasty, dies, Frank feels he must track down Gordon and tell him that their father's reign of terror is over. Can Frank's appearance after twenty-five years prompt a truce - a reconciliation even - will his arrival merely be the catalyst for more turmoil and brutality? Beneath the scorching, pitiless Andalusian sun, the two brothers are finally brought together for one last reckoning.
'Terse, bloody and vivid' THE TIMES
'A pleasingly thoughtful and atmospheric crime caper' DAILY TELEGRAPH
'Savage, sorrowful, superb' NIALL GRIFFITHS
'Vivid, lyrical and propulsive' MALACHY TALLACK
'A compelling, beautifully written story of male heartbreak' RUTH PADEL
Reviews / Votes
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 Bristling with brutality, it is written with masterly control...a descriptive tour de force... Crossing over into fiction, Rollinson has lost none of his poetry's flair or concerns, and has given them even greater impact * Literary Review * [A] beautifully written, dark debut novel * Independent * An extraordinarily tense and tender portrait of two brothers trying to escape their father's gangland past... One of this novel's many successes is in capturing the terror of illicit attraction... [it is] heartbreaking * Guardian * [A] tight, artful first novel... The Dead Don't Bleed is terse, bloody and vivid * The Times * Rollinson's gritty, soot-stained lyricism, together with the sombre, oppressive atmosphere, leaves a strong impression * Daily Mail * The Dead Don't Bleed hits a lot of the right notes... a pleasingly thoughtful and atmospheric crime caper * Daily Telegraph *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Dimensions
Height: 220 mm
Width: 138 mm
Thickness: 24 mm
Weight
302 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78733-536-3 (9781787335363)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Neil Rollinson
The Dead Don't Bleed
The thrilling and vivid debut novel about family, violence and redemption
E-Book
01/2026
Vintage Digital
€12.99
Available for download
Person
Neil Rollinson is the author of four poetry collections: A Spillage of Mercury (1996), Spanish Fly (2001), Demolition (2007) and Talking Dead (2015). He won the National Poetry Competition in 1997, received a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors in 2005, and was shortlisted for the 2015 Costa Poetry Prize for Talking Dead. The Dead Don't Bleed is his debut novel, and won the Deborah Rogers Award for previously unpublished prose writers in 2023.