Code Yesterday

Code Yesterday is a playful, twist-heavy literary thriller about the Beatles, rock mythology, misogyny, authorship, family secrets, and the strange way a false story can sometimes reveal a deeper truth. It is set mainly in Liverpool in October 2025 and follows Lonely McKenzie, a young Scottish-Liverpudlian singer-songwriter, her dying grandmother Yvonne, and an aging rock critic named Smoky Slug.

The novel opens at the Ropewalks Community Centre in Liverpool, where Smoky Slug is giving one of his theatrical lectures on classic British rock. Smoky is a relic of the 1960s and 1970s: leather jacket, crocodile boots, sunglasses, whisky, Harley keys, skull rings, contempt for modern music and modern manners. He is famous among older listeners for his old radio and TV work, but to younger people he is basically a dinosaur. His lecture routine is designed to provoke. He argues that rock is “a guy thing,” that British rock history is made almost entirely of male bands: the Stones, Pink Floyd, Queen, the Who, Led Zeppelin, the Clash, Oasis, and so on.

When an elderly woman in the audience challenges him for leaving out the Beatles, Smoky dismisses them as traitors to rock. They invented British rock only to betray it with sophistication, sentimentality, orchestration and cleverness. The old woman is Yvonne McKenzie, accompanied by her granddaughter Lonely. Yvonne, furious, leaves the room with Lonely, saying they have heard enough nonsense.