Description
Book Synopsis‘A moving and direct study of frailty, love and time and luck and grief’ Guardian Edvard Behrends is a diplomat, highly regarded for his work on international peace negotiations. Under his arbitration, unimaginable atrocities are coolly dissected; invisible lines, grown taut and frayed with conflict, redrawn. In his latest post, Edvard has been sent to a nondescript hotel in the Tyrol. High up on this mountain, the air is bright and clear. He confides in no one – no one but his wife Anna. Anna, who he loves with all his heart; Anna, always present and yet forever absent.
Trade ReviewA tender and elegant portrait of a grieving individual searching for personal and political peace * Sunday Times *
Tim Finch’s elegant and wintry novel has something of the feel of early Kazuo Ishiguro, and a similar acute grasp of both character and situation ... In Behrends, Finch has created a narrator both open and opaque * Observer *
There are war stories and there are love stories, but we only occasionally get war stories and love stories braided together … A wonderful novel, tiny and epic both. Laced with humour and sadness, this is an intimate account of what it means to make peace -- Colum McCann
A shrewd delight * independent.co.uk *
A profound novel about human frailty … In its tone and minor-key approach,
Peace Talks is reminiscent of the Julian Barnes of
Levels of Life, plus lashings of (duly credited) James Salter …
Peace Talks turns out to be a moving and direct study of frailty , love and time, and luck and grief , of what is left when all the noise – of machination, violence and competing stories – is stripped away * Guardian *
A feat of telling ... Masterfully rendered * Spectator *
As well as shining a light on the conflict resolution industry, Finch plays a canny game with our assumptions about the motives behind Anna’s murder, in a smart tale slyly engineered to warn against the perils of nationalist tub-thumping * Daily Mail *
