''A compelling tale beautifully told, Mr Mac & Me is as close to a perfect novel as anything Ive read in a long time. I loved every page of it'' Ann PatchettSet on the Suffolk coastline in 1914, a compelling story of an unlikely friendship from the Granta Best of Young British author of Hideous Kinky and The Sea HouseThomas Maggs, the son of the local publican, lives with his parents and sister in a village on the Suffolk coast in 1914. He is the youngest child, and the only son surviving. Life is quietshaped by the seasons, fishing and farming and the summer visitors.Then one day a mysterious Scotsman arrives. To Thomas he looks for all the world like a detective, in his black cape and hat of felted wool, and the way he puffs on his pipe as if hes Sherlock Holmes. Mac is what the locals call him when they whisper about him in the inn. And whisper they do, for he sets off on his walks at unlikely hours, and stops to examine the humblest flowers. He is seen on the beach, staring