The Kingdom of Ashes

The Kingdom of Ashes

by edric-robert (Author)

Synopsis

Germany, spring 1946. The Nuremberg Trials are underway. Three hundred miles north, in the Rehstadt Institute, an Assessment and Evaluation centre, Alex Foster interrogates a succession of lesser war criminals, deciding their futures in the soon-to-be-reborn Germany. But Rehstadt, a town largely untouched by the war, is a place of old hostilities and burnished hatreds; a place where the certainties of the past are still weighed favourably against the uncertain promises of the future. It is in the confusing geography and history of this unsettled town that Alex Foster finds love: Eva Remer, a German interpreter, through whom he sees the true nature of the world beyond the privileged military enclave he and his companions inhabit. As spring progresses, and events in the wider world quicken to their own closely-observed conclusion, Alex finds himself at the centre of a conflict involving British, American and German interests, and for the first time in his career, he also finds himself compromised -- forced into subterfuge and deceit as he struggles to weigh personal convictions and loyalties against the greater political and military good. Eventually, the rising conflicts of that incendiary environment pass beyond his control, drawing Alex, Eva and everyone close to them into a rushing tide of events, as inescapable and, ultimately, as destructive as anything Rehstadt suffered during the war itself.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 352
Edition: Airport / Export e.
Publisher: Doubleday
Published: 01 Aug 2007

ISBN 10: 0385612575
ISBN 13: 9780385612579
Book Overview: The astonishing new novel from one of the UK's finest literary writers

Media Reviews
Edric's work constitutes one of the most astonishing bodies of work to have appeared from a single author for a generation. - Daily Telegraph There aren't many novelists whose new book I would read without question, but I would read a new novel by Robert Edric.... A great novelist. - Spectator
Author Bio
Robert Edric was born in 1956. His novels include Winter Garden (1985 James Tait Black Prize winner), A New Ice Age (1986 runner-up for the Guardian Fiction Prize), A Lunar Eclipse, The Earth Made of Glass, Elysium, In Desolate Heaven, The Sword Cabinet, The Book of the Heathen (shortlisted for the 2001 WH Smith Literary Award), Peacetime (longlisted for the Booker Prize 2002) and Gathering the Water (longlisted for the Booker Prize 2006).