Description

‘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.

Publisher Review

A 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 *