Overcast Sunday

Overcast Sunday is set in April 1950 in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. It describes events that occur over a twenty-four-hour period after a young woman is discovered murdered in an inner city alley outside the Greek Club. The Police, already having a similar unsolved murder on their books, are keen to make quick progress and apprehend the killer to avert panic. The prime suspect is Jimmy, a veteran of Abyssinia, Dunkirk, Greece and Crete, who works as a chef in a local hotel. He is also a champion ballroom dancer and has a reputation as a ladies' man. Jimmy's friend Hari, another war veteran, is also implicated. Hari has been trying hard to find some semblance of a balance in his life and give it meaning in his new homeland. He is working at a tailor's to put himself through university while trying to cope with the demons bequeathed to him by the war. With the murder, tensions rise amongst the Greek community who value their special immigrant status in the city. This novel explores the lives of the Greek immigrant community of Wellington after the Second World War and through it, the wider society. It explores the clash of mores as outer, and inner communities try to adjust to a near violent past and a prospering post-war economy. Ballroom dancing, a flourishing black market, sly grogging, gambling and looser morals contribute to an underbelly that many who live in the capital are unaware off as with high inflation they struggle to make ends meet.