A Place in the Country

Or is it? Joanna is of that view, all in favour of a place in the country, but her husband Mark is not so sure. He has a friend who describes in excruciating detail the horror of packing up each Friday night, braving the traffic on the journey to the idyllic weekend destination and then repeating the agony in reverse two days later.

Before the ideal property can be found it is necessary to endure the purgatory of innumerable inspections of widely unsuitable options presented by estate agents who, together with the congested roads out of London, figure as minor villains in this drama.

Eventually the perfect cottage is found, but which one is it? And is there a further alternative?

There is a happy ending.

The Colour was Red is partly autobiographical and concerns the massacre in Amritsar in 1919, the Biafran War - the author spent twenty five years of his working life in Nigeria - and apartheid in South Africa. The second novel is the story of a pastry cook/chef, who served during the First World War and is in Paris at the time of the 1919 Peace Treaty negotiations. The book then recounts his subsequent experiences during the 1926 General Strike, the rise of Fascism in Europe and his success as a writer of detective fiction. During the Second World War he works in the film industry and attempts to write for the stage. Not So Private Lives is a light-hearted account of a production by an amateur dramatic company of Noel Coward's famous play.