Tremor - Hardcover

Graham, Winston

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312140568 ISBN 13: 9780312140564

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1996

Synopsis

A motley cast of colorful characters in search of adventure, romance, and refuge descends on the elegant Hotel Saada in Agadir, Morocco, but their lives are suddenly jeopardized by a devastating earthquake. By the author of The Loving Cup.

About this title

About the Author

Winston Mawdsley Graham OBE was an English novelist, best known for the series of historical novels about the Poldarks. Graham was born in Manchester in 1908, but moved to Perranporth, Cornwall when he was seventeen. His first novel, The House with the Stained Glass Windows was published in 1933. His first 'Poldark' novel, Ross Poldark, was published in 1945, and was followed by eleven further titles, the last of which, Bella Poldark, came out in 2002. The novels were set in Cornwall, especially in and around Perranporth, where Graham spent much of his life, and were made into a BBC television series in the 1970s. It was so successful that vicars moved or cancelled church services rather than try to hold them when Poldark was showing.

Aside from the Poldark series, Graham's most successful work was Marnie, a thriller which was filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1964. Hitchcock had originally hoped that Grace Kelly would return to films to play the lead and she had agreed in principle, but the plan failed when the principality of Monaco realised that the heroine was a thief and sexually repressed. The leads were eventually taken by Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. Five of Graham's other books were filmed, including The Walking Stick, Night Without Stars and Take My Life. Graham wrote a history of the Spanish Armadas and an historical novel, The Grove of Eagles, based in that period. He was also an accomplished writer of suspense novels. His autobiography, Memoirs of a Private Man, was published by Macmillan in 2003. He had completed work on it just weeks before he died. Graham was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and in 1983 was honoured with the OBE.

From Publishers Weekly

Though the publisher touts this latest from Graham, author of the Poldark series, as a disaster thriller "in the tradition of Grand Hotel, The Poseidon Adventure, and Towering Inferno," it offers more subtle pleasures than those potboilers. In re-creating the real-life destruction, in February 1960, of the Moroccan seaside resort of Agadir by an earthquake that took 12,000 lives, Graham has produced a compelling drama of sacrifice, loss and redemption. Agadir's majestic Hotel Saada is ground zero for this story and its collection of intriguingly oddball characters. These include a trio of boisterous French prostitutes celebrating a windfall; a young English writer fleeing his embittered wife; a pompous French banker fumbling to hide an indelicate secret; a beautiful French actress disillusioned by her career; an American lawyer recovering from his greatest personal trial; and an English bank robber hiding from the police and his own gang. The mingling of their lives and secrets begins casually enough as relationships develop, some with fresh promise, others with brittle coolness. Then the earthquake strikes. Out of the rubble emerge several new lives full of change, hope and love. Emotionally resonant narration, snappy dialogue and clever plotting make this a captivating tale not only of natural havoc and human tragedy, but of the uncertainty and misdirection of life.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0312140568
• ISBN 13: 9780312140564
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 291