A Country town thrown into chaos and defiance by a summer flood that threatens the festival pageant; a quarrel of hot young blood over the charms of rival beauty queens, a fishing competition with a compassionate embezzler's fortune at stake; a real battle between York and Lancaster with the wrong side winning; a female Communist redhead, a teetotal publican, an insufferable baronet, a mountainous American ex-soldier; and a lot of other characters who are only life-size-here is indeed the right material for a novel by John Moore.

He has not failed to make good use of it. His robust pen races round his beloved countryside, bringing the multiple strands of its life to the coherent pattern of the novel. Very many readers of Portrait of Elmbury, Brensham Village and The Blue Field have come to love John Moore's vision of England. All the ingredients of hurly-burly and hotchpotch, generosity and luxuriance, homeliness, character, comedy, country and a sense of the past, will be found in this book. And the mixture is as rich as before.