Armistice
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
11 a.m., 11th November 1918. Just when Philomena thinks Dan's going to make it home, her fiancé's slain on a battlefield in France.
Four months later, grieving Philomena travels to London to meet three soldiers who fought with Dan. Soon she discovers a terrible possibility: Dan's death wasn't at the hands of the enemy. But there is no proof, no witness, only an accusation by one man and the threat of ruin by another should he ever repeat it.
Alone in an alien city traumatised by the aftershocks of the war, whom should Philomena believe, who can she trust, in her attempt to discover if Dan was murdered? And this isn't her only challenge. Whilst inching ever closer to the truth Philomena finds herself falling for one of the men...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British playwright Stafford (who adapted War Horse for the stage) adds to the growing list of mysteries set during the WWI period with his intricate and moving first novel. Four months after soldier Daniel Case died in no-man's-land just after the armistice was declared, his fianc e, Philomena Bligh, travels to London, where she seeks out the two key witnesses to the tragedy: Jonathan Priest, who was Daniel's friend and has returned to his prewar profession as a barrister, and Anthony Dore, who was Daniel's commanding officer. Instead of gaining any measure of solace, Philomena is tormented almost beyond bearing by hearing from Jonathan that he believed that Anthony, not the Germans, fired the fatal shot, and that the captain did so deliberately. Stafford sensitively portrays Philomena's solo struggle for the truth in the face of official hostility to her probe as well as her efforts to come to terms with a cruel injustice.
