Lovelock

A Rhodes scholar at Oxford, a successful doctor and the runner who has been described as the first modern athlete, Jack Lovelock broke the world record to take the gold medal in the 1500 metres event at the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936. Yet a mystery remains. In 1949, at the age of thirty-nine, Jack Lovelock was killed when he fell beneath a train in New York. The enigma of his death, following the strange circumstances of many aspects of his life, become the key to McNeish's...
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A Rhodes scholar at Oxford, a successful doctor and the runner who has been described as the first modern athlete, Jack Lovelock broke the world record to take the gold medal in the 1500 metres event at the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936. Yet a mystery remains. In 1949, at the age of thirty-nine, Jack Lovelock was killed when he fell beneath a train in New York. The enigma of his death, following the strange circumstances of many aspects of his life, become the key to McNeish's compelling quest for the 'real' man within a disguise constructed to conceal an inherited disability. By shaping his novel into a fictional diary, supplementing Lovelock's own written records and the memories of his contemporaries, McNeish presents the reader with an intriguing narrative of rare power and excitement.