Return of the Circle

Return of the Circle is the third and final novel in a trilogy which has already included Reversal of David and its sequel Brothers in Retribution. The bizarre story of top cardiac surgeon David Barnsley-Hill is continued after his tragic heart attack and stroke while operating followed by his subsequent sudden and mysterious disappearance from his London home. We find David is now a landscape gardener in the picturesque Swiss Alps where for eight years he has lived alone in his small adopted mountain town under an assumed name. Yet he can't remember anything about how he got there. But eventually he finds it impossible to live this lie any longer and decides to return to London to face the music from his estranged wife and three children whom he had abandoned. It is also an opportunity to rekindle his close relationship with his former junior surgical colleague Fiona Penhaligon who has recently been made the Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery in his old Unit. On returning to London he has a series of meetings with some of his old colleagues and learns that he has recently been declared legally dead by the High Court. While he appears to have lost his obsession with time and watches, nevertheless he still has a strange demeanour and relationship with past events which seem increasingly obscure to him. He has a strained meeting with his ex-wife who has now remarried and appears to have lost everything including his entire family and position. There is a final confrontation with the external force that has been influencing and possibly controlling him for all his life, and the truth is at last revealed.