The Siege: A Novel

An urbane London Lawyer, Roger, reluctantly accompanies his wife on a three week visit to the strife-torn land where she was born. She is an art historian and the latest ethnic wars have uncovered, in the ruins of a cathedral, the remains of a four hundred year old fresco of the Last Judgement. The existence of this lost work of art had long been rumored, as had its attribution to a woman, Sister Margaret, alleged to have been a heretical nun as well as a Duke's mistress.
The professional opportunity is too good for Dorothy to pass up despite the danger if the current truce does not hold. Almost as soon as they arrive she is caught up in the translation of a newly discovered journal written by Sister Margaret which illustrates, as does the fresco, the art and allure of gratuitous torture. And Roger, to his horror, becomes obsessed with the atrocities - recent and past - his hosts boast of. Then Eva, a local beauty, lures him into the hills to meet the "partisans," and Roger is confronted with the thinness of civilization's veneer.