Frederic Debreu is Ted's only link with his brother. Eric had lost touch whilst teaching in France; in a backwater region of rolling meadows, amiable cafe-regulars and endless refills of red wine. Debreu country, from where Eric had sent his gushing letters about the obscure singer with the hazy past. So when Ted arrives on a retirement whim, clutching a guitar and a handful of scratched records, the Englishman should be overjoyed at the town's plans for a Debreu revival. But how was he to anticipate his own role in this? Reluctantly persuaded that he might help put Mailliot-le-Bois back on the map, Ted finds himself drawn into a web of well-intentioned deceit that he finds increasingly hard to unravel. Haunted by Eric's loss, and with the hopes of a whole community riding on him, it soon becomes apparent that there are other, more important things, that he hasn't mentioned to his loved ones... AUTHOR: Born in Essex, Alex's first writing job was as a teenage columnist for ZX Spectrum Adventurer magazine. Since then he's written short columns for The Guardian, jokes for BBC Radio and articles for one of the UK's biggest satirical news sites. As a commercial copywriter he has worked on everything from recruitment material for MI5 to advertising blurb for some of Britain's best-loved board games.
