Good Place to Die - Couverture souple

1974. Eighteen-year-old drifter John Pitt leaves England with nothing more than his wits and a desire to see the world. When he reaches Iran, he takes a job teaching English. On his first day, he is struck by a veiled woman with luminous black eyes and 'lovely feet' – the headstrong Shirin. The two fall naively and fiercely in love – without considering the consequences of a love like theirs in the Shah's Iran.

As the forces of revolution begin to rip through the country, John and Shirin are brutally separated, and John finds himself alone amid a vicious and devastating conflict in a region he barely understands.

Pulse-thumping and lyrical, A Good Place to Die evokes the history of a vastly complicated land and the lengths to which we'll go for those we love, even when faced with the truly unthinkable.

James Buchan was for many years a correspondent of the Financial Times in the Middle East, and later in central Europe and the US. He has written more than a dozen works of fiction and history, and his novels have won major literary awards, including the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize. His most recent publication, Days of God: The Revolution in Iran and its Consequences, was published in 2012. He lives with his family in Norfolk.