The island of Crete is occupied by Nazi Germany, to the disgust of the inhabitants. During this time, a relationship between a Cretan freedom fighter and an English woman springs up only to end in tragedy. Sixty years later, a young couple arrive on the island and begin to ask questions about the execution of the English woman during the German occupation. Then they disappear.
THE THRESHING CIRCLE takes up this tragic story in 2004, when the invaders are tourists. Kirsty, Scottish, divorced and spending the winter somewhere warm for a change, serves the locals in her cafe or kafenion. Her Greek is good, but at times the locals slip into Ancient Greek to speak privately. Barba Yiorgos, a respected local man, lets us in on the muted grumbling and old-timers' views. The islanders resent foreigners buying up old cottages, while one major landholder wants to redevelop his end of the island without regard for conservation. Yiorgios knows that the house-hunting couple who asked awkward questions about the English woman had reawakened the past tragedy and found more trouble than if they'd met Medusa. Some mountain villages still carry vendettas.
The tense atmosphere between locals and foreigners is skilfully built amid traditional hospitality, singing and dancing. Kirsty finds questions into the disappearance of the young couple mounting. Gangsters reportedly grow drugs in the remote country--could they be responsible for a tourist shooting and for the couple's Jeep being driven over a cliff? Kirsty may be the next victim if she keeps asking questions.
The scene is well set with mud rainstorms arising from a sandstorm over Africa and evenings hot enough for cicadas chirp to accompany lyres while people sit out and sip red village wine over gossip. The landscape of "Zorba the Greek" draws visitors and people are likened to Helen or Odysseus. However, the fierce pride of the insular locals means that they stash secret guns to use against returning invaders.
I enjoyed the total immersion in the culture, with the grapevine carrying current news but secrets being held for generations. Kirsty is amused and repelled equally by the womanizing local men, however, I found sustained violence against women late in the book to be disturbing. Neil Grimmett writes with a convincing level of realism and tells us of the village threshing floor; a circle of stones where the whole village would dance in a circle to beat the grain from the straw. The threshing circle is also the origin of the Greek theatre. The next time I visit a Greek island I'll know more about the sights in THE THRESHING CIRCLE - with added respect for the past thanks to the haunting bitterness of the story. THE THRESHING CIRCLE is an atmospheric thriller and fine adult read for armchair travellers.
A young couple arrive on the Greek island of Crete and begin
prying into the execution of a beautiful English woman
during the German occupation sixty years before. They enter
a labyrinth of forbidden love, betrayals, murder, greed and
vendettas, old and new.
Then they disappear.
A feisty Scottish woman and an irascible, Zorba-like Greek
form a reluctant allegiance in a desperate attempt to find
and rescue them. They both have very different motives for
their involvement. Their search will take them to hidden
rituals, ceremonies, remote gatherings, famous monasteries
and villages abandoned after decades of vendettas. To the
remote island of Gavdos and finally back to a place that,
“Even God does not know exists”.
They will encounter characters good and evil; some modern
and pragmatic, others ancient and magical.
All the time they are being stalked by the sons of man who
seeks to complete the crimes of his father and sate his own
greed and insane desire for vengeance. These men are more
animal than human and have been raised in the remote
mountains for the sole purpose of carrying out the brutal
will of their father.
The mystery of the real, hidden Crete runs deep, and THE
THRESHING CIRCLE explores some of the myths and romance
while not shying away from its often violent nature.
By the end choices will have to be made. If such actions are
really possible on an island where many Cretans still
believe that: “The Cycle of Blood”, can never stop flowing.
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