Married life is good in the suburbs of London for the goldsmith John Long. When on an otherwise banal day he sees a face from the past on a crowded underground train he reasons that the past one wishes to forget is conveniently consigned to the sanctuary of conscience and need not intrude on the present. But the sighting on the train is the beginning of a surge of mental recollective activity that takes him to the edges of the yellow safety lines on an underground train platform. He escapes the moment in a panic of incomprehension, unable to face the past but knowing he must. Under the protective beam of a lighthouse on the eastern coast of Ireland he begins to unravel the snares of his own mind, caught up in the needfulness of the only neighbour for miles. 'The Guest Informant' is a novel of unusual insightfulness into the bonds of relationships and the power of the human conscience. Long after closing the final page one's thoughts are haunted by the sea and by the narrator's dilemma.