Benjamin Myers’s novels can be separated into two categories. Some, such as The Gallows Pole and Cuddy, are works of muscular, linguistically and formally adventurous historical fiction. Others, including The Offing and The Perfect Golden Circle, are more conventional modern-day tales, with their warmth, wit and emphasis on character. His latest novel, Rare Singles, falls firmly into the second category. It’s a gentle romance, dripping with nostalgia for the 1970s Northern Soul scene, set in a Scarborough so vividly rendered you can almost taste the tang of vinegar on the fish and chips.

The novel opens in Chicago, with washed-up, septuagenarian soul singer Bucky Bronco recovering from an opioids jag, prostrate from various agony-inducing ailments and a broken heart. After his wife died the previous year, he was forced to become familiar with ‘the complete absence of love that had opened up like