The Officer's Affair

England, 1944. 

On the Anzio beachhead in Italy Allied troops are fighting for their lives. Young men watch their friends die around them and grow old before their time. From some of the most brutal conditions of the Second World War, two wounded men return to England. 

            When Danny Lock returns to his wife and children, it is not the joyful homecoming that he dreamt of all those nights in Italy. Disabled and embittered, he knows he will never resume a normal life. His young wife Rachel, determined to revive their marriage, struggles to understand the man her husband has become. But as his hostility towards her grows and the distance between them widens, all her hopes for the future begin to fade.

            Then Captain Andrews comes to visit. His attraction to Rachel is instant, but the tension between the two men seems to stem from an earlier time. What happened in Italy to make Danny so hostile to an officer he once trusted and admired? And why has Andrews come to visit him in the face of it?          

As all three strive to shake off the ghosts of the war, they must each face their own searching questions about the nature of love and loyalty in this heartwrenching novel, which explores the lives of a small group of people caught in the devastating legacy of the Second World War.