In conversation about his new book A Stranger in Corfu.

Bar and bookshop available.

A Stranger in Corfu is set on the Greek island of Vidos. Here the past lingers like salt in the air. The inhabitants – former members of MI6 – are sent here to be forgotten. Exiled. Either too damaged or too compromised to be allowed to live freely. For years, residents make the best of their fate – old enemies reconcile, long-lost friends swim together in the warm sea and estranged lovers share a bed once more. But secrets bind tightly. And when one of their own washes up dead, alliances fracture and a tide of suspicion begins to rise. A vivid reimagining of a real, hidden slice of the British Intelligence Service’s history, A Stranger in Corfu is a tense and masterfully spun novel about shadowy morality, unravelled secrets and the futility of trying to outrun the past.

Like Alex’s previous book, Winchelsea, A Stranger in Corfu plays with ideas of genre, this time taking the classic tropes of spy novels, and placing them into a fast-paced literary novel with a brilliant female lead.

Alex Preston is an award-winning author of five novels including This Bleeding City, The Revelations, In Love and War and Winchelsea, as well as a book of non-fiction, As Kingfishers Catch Fire. He writes regularly for the New York Times, the Economist and Harper’s Bazaar. He reviews books for the Observer’s New Review, Financial Times and Spectator. Alex is co-founder of the Corfu Literary Festival and Patron of Oxford Literary Festival.