Overview

Larh Thomas is asked by a famous film producer, George Paris, to go to a Greek island to help with the making of a film based on a novel about the unearthing of a mass grave. This grave has been dated to just after the end of World War II. In Greece there was a period of chaos in the years after the war, as British soldiers tried to prevent communists taking over the country. As filming starts on Paros, there are a few random acts of sabotage by disgruntled locals, but then the attacks turn much more serious, and one of the actresses is found dead. The production is caught between the actions of a local gangster, his renegade son, and the ineffectual local police. They have interrupted a negotiation between the criminals on the island and a gang from Athens, over control of a new drug smuggling route. Within the production, there are conflicts between the main actresses, a beautiful German woman with drug problems and a ruthless and ambitious English actress. The German actress, Christina Pafgen, has a friend with her on the island. He is not there to support her, but instead to act as negotiator between the criminal gangs. Christina is kidnapped to put pressure on him, but someone else does not want this negotiation to go well, and the meeting descends into violence. There are also questions about what actually happened in 1949, who the bodies belonged to and why there are so many. Larh and the writer Selena travel to the writer’s childhood village, to learn more. They are followed by the son of one of the soldiers who committed the atrocity. In the middle of all this, Larh stumbles into a new relationship with Jones, the director’s daughter, who is a key figure in the organisation of the production, which has to be completed despite all the problems.