"1920. The Great War has been over for two years, and it has left a very different world from the Edwardian certainties of 1914. Following the death of his wife and baby and his experiences on the Western Front, Laurence Bartram has become something of a recluse. Yet death and the aftermath of the conflict continue to cast a pall over peacetime England, and when a young woman he once knew persuades him to look into events that apparently led her brother, John Emmett, to kill himself, Laurence is forced to revisit the darkest parts of the war....." Richard and Judy

I love the works of Owen, Sassoon and Brooke, and was really looking forward to this book. Speller's prose is crisp, clean and simple, but her characters are remote and the plot is unsurprising.

This book took me by surprise in it's depth and how widely ranging the story goes. It is set in and just after WWI. The main character, Laurence Bartram returns from the war to find his young wife and infant son dead. He tries to hide away by writing a book on London churches and does not successfully engage with life after war. Then Mary Emmett enters his life- he knew her brother. Laurence is asked to investigate why John Emmett killed himself after the war. We meet some interesting characters, learn about the realities of trench warfare and shell shock. Many young men were destroyed by simply being in the war in Europe and this book in a way pays homage to those who suffered great emotional ill. I really enjoyed reading it because the characters were drawn in such a way that I cared about what happened to them. The plot is interesting and a bit of a who-done-it, of a gentle and intellectual manner rather than a modern graphic nature. Speller is very talented and can tell a very plausible story so I will find her other two books and read those too. Well worth reading. http://bookreviewsbyalumine.blogspot.com