Vincent Black, Scottish-Brummie sound engineer and aspiring folk singer, is turning fifty. A Communist, former train engineer, and a heroin addict who took his name from the Richard Thompson song 'Vincent Black Lightning 1952,' he is obsessed with mystical dreams about dead singers such as Nico, Sandy Denny, and Janis Joplin. After the drug-related deaths of a number of Vincent's friends leave him confused and frightened, he tries to deal with his sense of loss by playing music, and by escaping into a romantic affair with a younger woman who is just his type: artistic, spiritual and possessed of a sense of humour. Then, she disappears under mysterious circumstances. And when a lover from his student days begins stalking him, Vincent is panic-stricken-because that person is supposed to be dead. Fuelled by a passion for music - especially the protest songs and traditional ballads of British folk - and the fullest expression of Lane's allegiance to socialism and how left-wing politics intersect with creativity, Midnight Blue is the coda to a remarkable career of a writer now beginning to gain the critical praise he deserved.