Ruin

After the death of his controlling and violent father, Colin Fayn uncovers some items which his father has hidden in the cottage that was the family home. Some are simply mysterious; others are terrifying. They lead Colin on a voyage of discovery about his and his family's past. His father would have no discussion of family history and his mother, incapacitated in the Blitz in 1940 and permanently frightened of her husband, will say very little. Through his investigations and amateur detective work, Colin reveals a tangled family history which includes both his father's and his grand father's compulsive womanising and the deliberate torching of a beautiful mansion among the sugar canes on an island in the Far East. He is also forced to confront his own identity, for it is not what it seems. His world is increasingly peopled by spirits, visions and unpalatable truths. With narrative skill and humour, the author weaves a mysterious tale in which human passion, brutality, deceit and evasion seem to be dominating forces, until we acknowledge too the influence of redemption, loyalty and enduring love.