The Final Programme

In this final novel of the Out of Solitude tetralogy, Australian wine writer Andrew Johnston is comatose in hospital in Sydney, Australia, after being shot in Medjugorje in Bosnia and Herzegovina. His Croatian lover, Niki Mencetic, believes he is dead, the victim of a cruel deception by Andrew's brother, Adrian, and has returned to Dubrovnik. Following his emergence back to life, Andrew has to recover his health and his life as well as he is able. His two quandaries are what to do with his life and, even more importantly, how to reconnect with Niki, with whom he is still in love. Because of the time lapse since the incident and his uncertainty as to what her state of mind now is, he needs to find a way to contact Niki and explain his still being alive and, hopefully, to re-establish their relationship. To do this, he will need to visit Europe again, with a plan to make contact with Niki in as delicate and as painless a way for her as possible. Even if he is able to work through a way to get in touch with her, he is quite unaware of how she now feels towards him, believing him dead, and how she may react to the knowledge that he is, in fact, alive. Nevertheless, he has to try. Following Andrew on his crusade to reconnect with Niki takes the reader back through the history of their relationship and its many twists and turns, as well as the events that led to his being shot. Although Andrew has help in his quest, temporal, physical and cultural obstacles stand in the way of any smooth progress. The eventual outcome of this quest will define the rest of his life.