AustLit

'...a young Greek woman and her Australian boyfriend studying in England in 1972 return to her family’s village on a small island in the Aegean Sea to see her Communist father, who has just been released from prison in Piraeus.

Set in the uneasy and repressive period of the Greek Colonels’ dictatorship, the novel records the passionate violence of resistance to the ruling Fascists on the Island and the couples’ unavoidable part in the local conflict as death approaches the Island.' (Publication abstract)

'Helsingor revisits the story of Hamlet through the persona of Horatio. The novel wittily fills in gaps left by the original play, focusing on the often humorous character of Horatio. He is dragged from his humble beginnings and his bawdy student days with Hamlet in Wittenburg, into the tangled centre of politics at Elsinore. We witness a myopic Horatio, a would-be actor, bumble his way through the dramatic events, through the dark intrigues of the Court, and the bitter struggle between Protestants and Catholics. We read in a tragic-comic manner how Horatio survives the tragic death of Hamlet and the assumption of the throne by Fortinbras.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.