Richard Temple

"It's 1944 when the novel opens on Richard, pegged as an Allied agent, withstanding torture and interrogation at the hands of the Gestapo in a French prison. In his cell in between beatings, he retreats to his memories, which make up the bulk of the novel. The story casts back to his bleak childhood as son of a strict rector and his pretty wife. He studies painting in France, and eventually returns to England, facing the life of a starving artist in London."
"Imprisoned by the German army in France, an artist and espionage agent endures regular beatings and seeks to retain his sanity by minutely examining his life, which is marked by an alcoholic mother and work as an art forger to escape starvation."
"Captive in a German prison towards the end of the Second World War, Richard Temple has been stripped of everything which once defined him. But a sudden respite in his torture allows him a moment of rare release, where he recalls his difficult upbringing and compromised adulthood."@en