Book description
A worker is killed in the striking coalfields of Wales. Some months
later a government minister thought to be connected with the death is
also shot. Lewis Redfern, once a radical, now a political analyst and
journalist, pursues the sniper, a lonely hunt that leads him through
an imbroglio of Civil Service leaks and international wheelings and
dealings to a secret organization: a source of insurrection far more
powerful than anyone could have suspected - the world of the
Volunteers. A compelling thriller, The Volunteers is also an
engrossing reminder of the conflict between moral choice and political
loyalty. Through his obsessive pursuit of justice, overcoming bluff
and counter-bluff, Redfern finally encounters the truth about himself.
Raymond Williams was born in the Welsh border village of Pandy in
1921. He was educated at Abergavenny Grammar School and at Trinity
College, Cambridge and he served in the Second World War as a Captain in
the 21st Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery. After the war he began an
influential career in education with the Extra Mural Department at
Oxford University. His life-long concern with the interface between
social development and cultural process marked him our as one of the
most perceptive and influential intellectual figures of his generation.
'The Volunteers' (1978) was one of a series of novels with a
predominantly Welsh theme or setting, an engagement which began with his
most well-known work 'Border Country' (1960) and continued with the
massive two-volume 'People of the Black Mountains' (1988-90). He died in
1988. Dai Smith is currently chair of the Arts Council of Wales.
Previous publications include (with Hywel Francis) The Fed: History of
the South Wales Miners in the Twentieth Century (1980); Wales: A
Question for History (1999) and Raymond Williams: A Warrior's Tale
(2008). Dai Smith is also series editor of the Library of Wales series.
Born in Tonypandy he now lives in Barry and is professor at Swansea
University.
