Bucharest has fallen, and Harriet and Guy Pringle have escaped to Athens in the nick of time to find several of their old acquaintances there already. But even Guy's eternal optimism fails him when he realises that his former employees feel no gratitude or loyalty to him. Guy and Harriet both come to realise that with Greece threatened by the Axis Powers, Athens is not the safe harbour they thought.This is the third and final part of The Balkan Trilogy, which began with The Great Fortune and was followed by The Spoilt City.Olivia Manning, OBE, was born in Portsmouth and spent much of her youth in Ireland. She married just before the Second World War and went abroad with her husband, a British Council lecturer in Bucharest. Her experiences there formed the basis of the work which makes up The Balkan Trilogy. They returned to London in 1946 and lived there until her death in 1980.Awarded the CBE, Harriet Walter has received the Olivier Award for her roles in Twelfth Night, Three Sisters and A Question of Geography, and has twice won the Sony Radio Award for Best Actress. Her many TV credits include Law and u0026 Order: UK, Little Dorrit, Doctors, Trial and u0026 Retribution and Messiah. Among her films are Atonement and Sense and Sensibility, and her autobiography, Other People's Shoes, was published to great critical acclaim.