The war artist - Steven Kelly

'After such knowledge, what forgiveness?' Charles Monk is an artist obsessed by war. He is both appalled and fascinated by the extremes of the experience and it is only during wartime that he feels truly alive, when his senses are on red alert. As he travels from war zone to war zone, he is consumed by the eroticism of his experiences and desperately tries to capture them on canvas. But it is his love for Miriam, the stunningly beautiful wife of his best friend - the son of a massively wealthy shipping magnate - that proves to be his most dangerous challenge. Extravagant, elegant and disturbing and written in a prose that is as precise as honed steel, THE WAR ARTIST is a novel by a writer at the height of his considerable powers.