A gripping thriller set among Britain's snowy peaks from the bestselling author of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Suspense, secrets, conspiracy, and entrapment come to a head in this dark allegory of the modern postwar condition. Snowbound in the remote White Cavalier Hotel in the mountains of England's Lake District, a motley mix of strangers think they have found refuge, but instead discover a violent drama that is ready to explode. Among the mysterious guests imprisoned by the blizzard are a murderous BMW driver, a female hitchhiker, an anxious bookseller-forger, illicit lovers, aging Hells Angels bikers, a hostage of marriage, a loathsome father and son, and an IRA terrorist with a bomb-laden van. Everyone has brought along their personal baggage of guilt for crimes they have committed against society, and as they uncover one another's secrets and unwind a conspiracy, they must also face their own selves. Taking kitchen sink realism into the depths of winter and the infernal mind of a terrorist, acclaimed British novelist and "angry young man" Alan Sillitoe creates a poignant existential investigation with a chilling twist.
"Mr. Sillitoe's narrative style is brisk and to the point, and the novel builds quickly to an explosive finale."
Irish Press
"Alan Sillitoe, the long-distance runner of English novelists, shows no signs of flagging in this, his twenty-fifth volume of fiction. This is Alan Sillitoe on the top of his form, writing not merely an adventure story, but a profound novel concerning tortured human lives."
