The Story of J

Hugh Penworthy, a retired country solicitor, is a widow in his seventies who grew up in Topsham, Devon and ran his father’s solicitor’s firm in Exeter until retiring to the extreme tip of Cornwall, where, to occupy himself, he looks after the legal affairs of a few local artists and charities. J, as he was known to his friends, also grew up in Topsham. Also widowed, J is now an octogenarian, living in a cottage at Polruan on Cornwall’s Fowey estuary with his carer-cum-partner and cat. Hugh and J met fleetingly during school holidays, mostly boating and fishing on the Exe estuary, only to lose contact until some 60 years later, when J, a renowned anthropologist and needing help in publishing a series of politically sensitive monographs, contrives to meet Hugh at Hugh’s father’s funeral in Penzance.

Hugh agrees to help J. With time on his hands, he embarks on a seemingly straightforward publishing venture. In need of academic assistance, he finds himself drawing closer to Elspeth, a university librarian. Their romance plays out on the Fowey, Fal and Exe estuaries, giving them both a new purpose in life. However, their research into J’s maverick anthropological exploits takes them into a web of international state crime in which not only J’s work but perhaps their knowledge of it, must be silenced.