The year is 2012. The global conflict that first manifested itself in the attack on the twin towers and broadened and deepened with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq has continued through the first decade of the new millennium and beyond, bringing with it ever increasing hatred and misery. A broken backed Britain battered by global economic collapse and seemingly endless terrorist outrages, has succumbed to fascism and barbarism.

 

Charlie Gilbert, a south London schoolteacher, is not a particularly brave man yet he will need all his resources of bravery and ingenuity as events close in on him. Charlie has a secret. He has a young mixed race daughter, Natalie, hidden away in the country with his elderly mother. If caught by the authorities, Natalie and anyone helping her would meet a brutal end. Charlie decides that their only hope lies in escape to Ireland, which remains a democracy. He sets out to collect Natalie with only the haziest idea of how to effect their escape.

 

Charlie, Natalie, his elderly mother and a disagreeable family cat called Catesby set out west, heading for Wales and thence to Ireland and safety. En route, they experience capture, incarceration in a slave labour camp, escape and recapture, collecting on the way Billy, an elderly Jamaican. Their story is both a fast moving adventure story and a warning as to the future of a troubled world.

 

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Andrew Keogh was born in Leeds and lives in south London with his wife and two children. He is a practising barrister specialising in criminal law. When not engaged in the law or writing or reading fiction, he enjoys cookery, a wide range of popular music, being a cricket anorak and following the misadventures of Leeds United Football Club. This is his first novel.