John Benfield
On the edge of the Antarctic Circle, in the years after World War I, a steam ship approaches a desolate island far from all shipping lanes. On board is a young man, on his way to assume the lonely post of weather observer, to live in solitude for a year at the end of the world. But on shore he finds no trace of the man whom he has been sent to replace, just a deranged castaway who has witnessed a horror he refuses to name. The rest is forest, a deserted cabin, rocks, silence, and the surrounding sea. And then the night begins to fall…
Virgil Oldman is a world renowned antiques expert and auctioneer. An eccentric genius, he leads a solitary life, going to extreme lengths to keep his distance from the messiness of human relationships. When appointed by the beautiful but emotionally damaged Claire to oversee the valuation and sale of her family’s priceless art collection, Virgil allows himself to form an attachment to her – and soon he is engulfed by a passion which will rock his bland existence to the core.
In Ireland, American lawyer Ingrid Jessner and her activist partner, Paul Sullivan, struggle to uncover atrocities committed by the British government against the Northern Irish during the “Troubles.” But when Sullivan is assassinated in the streets, Jessner teams up with Peter Kerrigan, a British investigator acting against the will of his own government, and struggles to uncover a conspiracy that may even implicate one of Kerrigan’s colleagues.
