Showing results for "Absalom, Absalom!" in Literature & Fiction

Absalom, Absalom! tells the story of Thomas Sutpen, the enigmatic stranger who came to Jefferson township in the early 1830s. With a French architect and a band of wild Haitians, he wrung a fabulous plantation out of the muddy bottoms of the north Mississippi wilderness. Sutpen was a man, Faulker said, "who wanted sons and the sons destroyed him". His tragedy left its impress not only on his contemporaries but also on men who came after, men like Quentin Compson, haunted even into the 20th century by Sutpen's legacy.

No one can escape their past forever. Ex-SAS operator John Bald knows that better than most. So when the Firm corners Bald in Kazakhstan with a promise to wipe the slate clean, he reluctantly agrees to return to the frontline. His mission: hunt down a fugitive Russian oligarch suspected of murdering a beautiful young Westminster aide. Viktor Klich knows too much. Now Bald must catch Klich - before the Russian security services get to him first.

It's the late 1930s, and even on the remote island of St Martin's in the Isles of Scilly, war seems inevitable. But the islanders have their own battles to contend with, stuck on a rock flung 27 miles out into the Atlantic with only their natural grit and gallows humour to see them through. When a Penzance GPO man arrives to check on the post office, the islanders decide he must be the undertaker come to deal with the body of the late Post Office manager.