The Last Red Leaf

About the Book

Terrorist attacks co-ordinated world wide against cities in several continents lead first to great destruction and then to a pandemic which entails the death or a strange wasting disease for many millions.Three families living in England have prepared for such an emergency and take flight to a small estate which they own on a remote Scottish island .Here amongst deteriorating conditions,both human and environmental, they struggle to survive amidst great difficulties.Conflicts arise between local communities and some of the islanders find it difficult to come to terms with isolation and the collapse of order.Visitors who disturb their plans include an albino local warlord,an aggressive American businessman,a U.S. nuclear submarine and a returning Laird.For some time the islanders survive all attacks on their independence but ,as disease and pestilence spread from the South, their existence becomes more and more fragile.How successful their attempt may be to avoid the world catastrophe only time will tell.

About the Author

Michael Gordon is a retired history teacher who has worked for four decades in schools and Colleges both in the U.K. and Europe. For many years he was Head Teacher of an International school and later Head of Dept. in a Sixth Form College. He has a degree from the University of Durham and a teaching qualification from the University of Hull. He has published one other novel, a Roman romance, entitled the Sacred Bough.His childhood he spent in Northumberland with his grandmother with whom he lived during the Second World war. She was a music teacher and his mother an accomplished professional violinist while his grandfather was a noted portrait painter in London. He has travelled extensively in Europe and spent time in most countries on the Continent as well as driving to Greece and the edge of the Sahara in Morocco in the 1970Õs.Many visits have also been made in his walking days to the Lake District . Now a more leisurely approach is made to the hills of the North West of Scotland where he and his wife spend several weeks each year.He has a great love of Classical music, plays the piano somewhat indifferently,and has a large collection of CDÕs and Opera DVDÕs. Over the years of his teaching career he sketched out ideas for several novels and short stories but has only now the time to work on these. He lives now with his wife,Ruth, in Norfolk