The Persians are Coming: & Other Stories; Including 'Movie Star' and 'The Black Violinist'

Love, cruelty and controversy bind this lively, absorbing collection of stories together in which the author takes his cue from English history and from his own experience and imagination.

Whether it be a youth in ancient time who might have been Christ, a beggar lad in the court of King Henry the Eighth, a person of colour presented to a mad King George, a hungry East End boy in the 1930s or a successful but love-sick businesswoman in 2013, his imagination enjoys free rein. London and East Kent provide the backgrounds, the English Channel home to an illegally-moored Iranian battleship.

Observing an open-minded attitude to sex and sexuality, imaginary characters surface who dare to challenge the established order of things - notably the majority's self-satisfied assumption of what is normal.