The novelist Grgory Feeley wrote in the Washington Post about this early novel: "The story of Dr. Alain Roig, who returns to his Catalan home town after years of medical research in the Far East to intercede in an imminent family scandal, is drolly observed, beautiful in its evocation of place, and -- like O'Brian's later novels -- often mordantly funny. "  (FRN511, $14.95)