Frederic Debreu is Ted’s only link with his brother. Eric had lost touch whilst teaching in France; in a backwater region of rolling meadows, amiable café-regulars and endless refills of red wine. Debreu country, from where Eric had sent his gushing letters about the obscure singer with the hazy past. So when Ted arrives on a retirement whim, clutching a guitar and a handful of scratched records, the Englishman should be overjoyed at the town’s plans for a Debreu revival. But how was he to anticipate his own role in this? Reluctantly persuaded that he might help put Mailliot-le-Bois back on the map, Ted finds himself drawn into a web of well-intentioned deceit that he finds increasingly hard to unravel. Haunted by Eric’s loss, and with the hopes of a whole community riding on him, it soon becomes apparent that there are other, more important things, that he hasn’t mentioned to his loved ones…