The Heroes

Spring 1968

Formerly inseparable, five boys, known affectionately as ‘The Heroes’, all of them eight years of age, school together, play together and explore together. One day in the spring term, one of them dies suddenly, in the arms of his teacher and their headmaster goes missing without a trace.

May 2019

Fifty years later, local private investigators, Robert Fox and Rosemary Bennett are engaged by the dead boy’s sister to find out if the headmaster is still alive, because he may hold the key as to why her brother, Derek, died.

Everyone says that he died of natural causes, but the boy’s sister believes it is something more sinister.

The two private investigators seek out the four remaining boys and their teacher, to help them in their quest for the truth about what happened to her brother and of the headmaster’s disappearance.

But they are not the only ones seeking them out.

The boys each have held a chilling secret, and someone wants to keep it that way, no matter what it takes.

Will Fox and Bennet find out what the boys know before someone else does?

John E Lawrence is new to the world of writing fiction. He founded his health and safety consultancy more than fourteen years ago, providing specialist health, safety and fire safety engineering advice to the construction industry and the built environment.

In 2019, he handed down the daily management of the business to his son, allowing him to pursue his other interests.

He started on his journey, writing fiction in 2020, just before the pandemic hit the UK, completing his first novel The Heroes at the beginning of 2021.

John has been married for over thirty years and lives with his wife in their family home on the Sussex Coast of England.