A gripping thriller set among Britain's snowy peaks from the bestselling author of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Suspense, secrets, conspiracy, and entrapment come to a head in this dark allegory of the modern postwar condition. Snowbound in the remote White Cavalier Hotel in the mountains of England's Lake District, a motley mix of strangers think they have found refuge, but instead discover a violent drama that is ready to explode.
Among the mysterious guests imprisoned by the blizzard are a murderous BMW driver, a female hitchhiker, an anxious bookseller-forger, illicit lovers, aging Hells Angels bikers, a hostage of marriage, a loathsome father and son, and an IRA terrorist with a bomb-laden van. Everyone has brought along their personal baggage of guilt for crimes they have committed against society, and as they uncover one another's secrets and unwind a conspiracy, they must also face their own selves.
Taking kitchen sink realism into the depths of winter and the infernal mind of a terrorist, acclaimed British novelist and "angry young man" Alan Sillitoe creates a poignant existential investigation with a chilling twist.
About the Author :
Alan Sillitoe (1928-2010) was a British novelist, poet, essayist, and playwright, known for his honest, humorous, and acerbic accounts of working-class life. Sillitoe served four years in the Royal Air Force and lived for six years in France and Spain, before returning to England. His first novel, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, was published in 1958 and was followed by a collection of short stories, The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, which won the Hawthornden Prize for Literature. With over fifty volumes to his name, Sillitoe was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1997.
Review :
"A terrific book." --The Guardian "Alan Sillitoe, the long-distance runner of English novelists, shows no signs of flagging in this, his twenty-fifth volume of fiction. This is Alan Sillitoe on the top of his form, writing not merely an adventure story, but a profound novel concerning tortured human lives." --London Evening Standard
"The ticking bomb provides a natural impetus for the narrative, while the apocalyptic scenario enables Sillitoe to explore what happens to human beings in circumstances of extremity." --The Sunday Telegraph
"Mr. Sillitoe's narrative style is brisk and to the point, and the novel builds quickly to an explosive finale." --Irish Press
"Alan Sillitoe has never been bleaker than in his new novel Snowstop." --Today
"Snowstop is solidly confident and professionally executed." --The Times (London)
