However they particularly disliked Robbie Ross and old friend and supporter of Wilde. Even Margot Asquith was publicly attacked. They were convinced the Germans were trying to “propagate evils which all decent men thought had perished in Sodom and Lesbia”. He teamed up with Harold Spencer who was working for the secret services. He was convinced the Germans had a list of 47 000 prominent homosexuals who they could blackmail. Noel Pemberton Billing (aviator and would be MP) was convinced that homosexuality was infiltrating society and damaging the war effort. However one particular sensational libel case stands out. The varied attitudes towards because of the strains of wartime have been well documented. There is also a window on one of the more bizarre incidents which took place in Britain, which would be entirely unbelievable, if it wasn’t true. Barker describes the lives of those opposing the war, pacifists and those sheltering deserters and those contemplating more drastic measures. She uses Prior, unfit to return to France, working for military intelligence and having affairs with men and women to take us round what is happening. Barker focuses on the maelstrom of opinion, debate and misinformation that comes with a society at war.

Dr Rivers is now in London (as is Prior) and we are plunged into a society struggling with the consequences of war and some of the hysteria that goes with it.

One of the fictional characters from Regeneration, Billy Prior, is also central to this novel. We have moved on to early 1918 and the war is still in the balance. As previously Barker does an excellent job of weaving fact and fiction together. The second book in the trilogy just as good and it helps a great deal to have read the first.

Pat barker the eye in the door