Now I saw this at a thrift-shop and as I like Louis De Bernieres and have been on a bit of a reading roll I picked it up.
It's good.
But, less on the review front I read it and begin to recognize myself - the plot - a middle aged man falls for a young Yugoslavian Girl (Serbian). That's plenty. No spoilers here. But there's the curious symmetries - heroin lives in Clapham - I lived in Clapham - Heroin is a Serbian Hostess in a Hostess Bar in Soho - oddly enough, my housemate was a Bosnian Hostess at a Hostess bar in Soho...and the stories, well, fictionalized for sure, but one recognizes enough places and parallels to ones own life to wonder...
A curious coincidence, timing, whatever, that took me back to the day...