Utopia

by Peter Cowlam

Mystery surrounds the source of Zora Murillo’s unfathomable wealth. But that’s not all the locals puzzle about on her abrupt arrival in a quaint old English market town. There the hotel she buys, the Pleiades, is transformed into a living cabaret act and the scene of political reprisal. But what also of the shadowy M, or Em, or Emoticon, as he styles himself, who claims only to be the writer of a gossip column? His rapport with Zora suggests he knows what has brought her to the town of Hoe. Could he have played his part for her father, an acknowledged leader in AI and robotics, in resisting the changes wrought in his country, with its so-called F regime? The coup led by General Forsiss, who in no sense of irony refers to his brave new state as Utopia, might be an ocean away, but the scars it has left are deep and permanent. And exactly what grief is it that the Forsiss regime has inflicted on the Murillo family, drawing its net ever tighter? Dr Murillo has lain awake at night fearing the midnight knock, and the black van waiting outside, knowing little of Zora’s ingenious attempts to rid them both of the clutches of Forsiss and his cronies.

136 pages, Paperback

Published October 4, 2019