It is 1981 and there is an election in Greece that promises radical change after fifty years. In a small town in Crete, Dr Rainer Seeburg is adrift, separated from his Cretan wife, working as an unofficial unpaid rubbish collector for the town and with an irregular practice as a doctor. He is supported by friendship with local farmer Manelos, but he has his own problems when an uncle has his sheep stolen. It is a visit from Rainer’s wife Vangelia suffering in her father’s house that prompts the possibility of radical change for him too.

John Barker was born in London in 1948. In 1972 he was convicted of conspiring to cause explosions in what was called the Angry Brigade trial. He served a ten-year prison sentence and is the author of Bending the Bars, a memoir of his prison time and a crime novel called Futures. He worked as a dustman and welder before being implicated in a conspiracy to import cannabis in 1986. In 1990 he was finally arrested and served a five-year sentence. Since then he has worked as writer and book indexer.

For further biographical details, see 2014 article in The Guardian based on an interview with John Barker.

ISBN 978099574471
Publisher: ‎ Harrier Press
2 Feb 2009
Paperback‏ ‎
265 pages