The House in Bacolet - David Lambert

British couple Hugh and Julia Pennington buy an old church to convert on a former cocoa plantation on a Caribbean island. When their estate agent fails to meet them at the airport, they accept a lift in a large American car from a charismatic local, Horatio. The couple are to become increasingly dependent on Horatio who ends up moving into their ‘servants’ quarters’ but remains an enigma. 

An intimate portrait of a marriage, the novel also explores the difficulties of human communication and how these are compounded when race, sex and culture-bound assumptions are added to the mix.