Imagine a nightmare scenario where a new European Federation ruled from Paris by President Alan Barker, an ex-British Prime Minister, decides to 'Shut down Britain'.Slipping easily from Paris to the Baltic to a labour camp in Central England and a rural backwater in Wales, Hobson Tarrant draws the four strands of his intriguing work of fiction firmly, if agonisingly together. He explores the terrifying effects of the abuse of power and sex and the cruelty of man to man.A dazzling array of characters keeps our interest bubbling - from our prisoner on the run from his Orwellian captors to a bare-knuckle fighter in the ring, a zany survivalist doctor and a lonely woman at bay with her family on her farm.As an old man remembers for the TV cameras, his life in the early 21st century was no bowl of cherries - no sir! And if this sounds unlikely, just look at Europe now!