About this item
Set in post-war Germany, the international bestseller The Aftermath by Rhidian Brook is a stunning emotional thriller about our fiercest loyalties and our deepest desires. In the bitter winter of 1946, Rachael Morgan arrives with her only remaining son Edmund in the ruins of Hamburg. Here she is reunited with her husband Lewis, a British colonel charged with rebuilding the shattered city. But as they set off for their new home, Rachael is stunned to discover that Lewis has made an extraordinary decision: they will be sharing the grand house with its previous owners, a German widower and his troubled daughter. In this charged atmosphere, enmity and grief give way to passion and betrayal.
About the Author
I started writing fiction in my mid-twenties. I was working as a copywriter in advertising when I was struck down with a post-viral condition. For two years I was unable to go back to work. I sat around, read a great deal and, when I had the energy, tried to write stories. A success in the 1991 Time Out short story competition gave me the confidence to write some more. Once well enough I returned to the day job but kept going with the stories and had a number published in various magazines including The New Statesman and Paris Review as well as broadcast on BBC Radio. During this time I started writing a novel that was eventually published as The Testimony Of Taliesin Jones. The novel won three prizes including the 1997 Somerset Maugham Award and, a couple of years later, was made into a film starring Jonathan Pryce. Buoyed by this I wrote a second novel, Jesus And The Adman, published in 1999, and began to have thoughts of giving up the day job to write fiction full time. In 2002 I tried my hand at writing screenplays and in 2004 BBC Drama commissioned me to write a single film - Mr Harvey Lights A Candle - that was broadcast the following year and starred Timothy Spall. For the next two seasons I wrote for Silent Witness and was just settling down to the new day job when I was asked to write a book about the Aids pandemic for the Salvation Army. I agreed and ended up making a 9-month journey, with my wife and two children, to Africa, India and China. Whilst we travelled I did broadcasts for the BBC World Service and Radio 4's Thought For The Day - to which I had been a regular contributor since 2001. The book describing that journey - More Than Eyes Can See - was published in 2007. In 2009 I wrote a feature - Africa United - for Pathe which went on general release in October 2010. A year later a story that was based on my grandfather's experiences in post war Germany was commissioned as a screenplay by Ridley Scott and BBC Film. I'd always wanted to write it as a novel so, whilst writing the screenplay, I started writing the book. After writing fifty pages I showed it to my agent and she managed to sell it to 23 publishers around the world. This was enough to allow me to write the rest of the novel: The Aftermath. For more information on Rhidian Brook or The Aftermath, visit his website at www.rhidianbrook.com or like the Facebook fan-page - Rhidian Brook.
