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The Dead Don't Bleed

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The Dead Don't Bleed

By: Neil Rollinson
Narrated by: David Nellist
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

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

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.

'Thrilling and brilliantly imagined' SARAH HALL

'Savage, sorrowful, superb' NIALL GRIFFITHS

'Vivid, lyrical and propulsive' MALACHY TALLACK

'A compelling, beautifully written story of male heartbreak' RUTH PADEL

© Neil Rollinson 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

 Crime Fiction Family Life Genre Fiction Literary Fiction

Critic reviews

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
[A] beautifully written, dark debut novel
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
[A] tight, artful first novel… The Dead Don’t Bleed is terse, bloody and vivid
Rollinson’s gritty, soot-stained lyricism, together with the sombre, oppressive atmosphere, leaves a strong impression
The Dead Don’t Bleed hits a lot of the right notes… a pleasingly thoughtful and atmospheric crime caper
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