Monica Dickens

Successful, admired, fairly happily married and ambitious, Steven Sheppard is very much a pillar of the community. But inside him lurks a little demon of boredom which prompts him to ask if there isn't more to life than this.

Lieutenant-Commander, the hero of this novel, is axed from the Navy at the age of 36, one of many thousands obliged to re-plan their lives as the result of cuts in the armed services. A widower with a small daughter, he has no experience or knowledge outside submarines and the Royal Navy. His whole life had been that …