Arrival and Departure

Alternate cover for ISBN 0140181199 (ISBN13: 9780140181197). Spring 1941: Peter Slavek, a student-hero who has survived interrogation by torture, has escaped from an oppressive dictatorship. He arrives in Neutralia, a tense clearing-house for refugees en route for uneasy peace or total war. Among them are Odette, a beautiful child-widow; Bernard, an epicene Fascist proselytizer; and the massive but nubile psychologist Dr Sonia Bolgar, who gives Peter the run of her flat ...in return for the run of his mind. Arthur Koestler's nightmare allegory hinges on the dilemma of the revolutionary who realizes that power can corrupt not only its wielders, but its victims.