If the Invader Comes

A critically acclaimed, Booker long-listed novel that is reminiscent of Pat Barkers Regeneration Trilogy. Clarice Pike and Vic Warren are from completely different backgrounds. An impossible affair has already driven them thousands of miles apart. 1939 finds Clarice in Malaya where her father is an obscure company doctor, and Vic in East London, an unemployed shipwright badly married to Phylis, Clarices cousin. As their feelings conspire to draw the lovers back together, the world erupts with a terrible violence. It is the relentlessness of male brutality that forces Vic to grope towards what real manhood might be. If the Invader Comes combines themes from Derek Beavens previously acclaimed Newtons Niece and Acts of Mutiny to portray a wartime England where human relationships are threatened as much from within the family as from occupied Europe. Exciting, moving and ultimately optimistic, Derek Beavens new novel represents a daring leap in British fiction.