Late summer 1946: the Wash on the Fenland coast. Into a suspicious and isolated community comes James Mercer, employed in the demolition of gun platforms. He befriends the wife and daughter of Lynch, a soldier soon to be released from military jail. He also finds himself drawn to Mathias, a German prisoner with no desire to return home, and Jacob, a Jewish concentration camp survivor.
Lynch's return threatens violence; and in a place where nothing has changed for decades, where peacetime feels no different to wartime, Mercer finds himself powerless to prevent events quickening to their violent and unexpected conclusion.
Longlisted for the 2002 Booker Prize.
