Run Adolf run: the World War Two fun book

In this atmospheric and powerful novel set on the east coast of England, dramatic personal conflicts reveal that peacetime is hardly any different from wartime.

Late summer 1946: the Wash on the fenland coast. Into a suspicious and isolated community comes James Mercer, until recently a captain in the Engineers, now employed in the demolition of redundant gun platforms. A relationship grows between Mercer and the wife of a soldier who is expected home very soon, and whose arrival is awaited with anxiety. Mercer also befriends Mathias, a German prisoner-of-war involved in similar work, who has no wish to be repatriated, and Jacob, a Jew and camp survivor. Mercer soon learns there is a bond between the German and the Jew, and is drawn further into their history as the ex-soldier finally returns and begins to re-establish his overbearing authority. In a place where nothing has changed for decades, the agents of destruction and renewal are at work. As the summer dies, animosities flare, prejudices and enmities are burnished and the six main characters circle each other like the combatants they believe themselves to be.

Robert Edric is an award-winning novelist whose recent books include The Book of the Heathen, shortlisted for the 2001 W.H. Smith Award.