The Border Reiver

It was during his teenage years that the die of Hughie Graham's life had been cast. Karate had been his response to bullying, whilst electronics and music had countered the social exclusion that followed. The isolation of a farm in the Scottish Borders had fostered his off-road driving ability, although a singular physical attribute had ensured his popularity with the opposite sex. Fifteen years later he is a womanising DJ on the English club circuit and, after the 2013 Scottish declaration of independence that followed the English ban on tobacco and strong alcohol, using all of his talents to run contraband across the border for his clubland contacts, raiding like a latter-day Border Reiver. Then a violent encounter leaves him owing a favour to a mysterious Russian, to be repaid by theft and electronic forgery, and an agent of Scottish Intelligence blackmails him for an ostensibly worthless family document. But is it as worthless as it seems and will life ever be the same again for the Reiver?