Change Of Heart

Oliver Gurth Perkins is seventy-five, and the darkest cloud on his horizon is that the local bookshop no longer stocks paperbacks of the Times cryptic crosswords. He has an easy companionship with his wife; his dental practice is undemanding; his son is a decent enough sort; and his granddaughter who comes for the school holidays is his delight. But when a minor heart episode convinces Oliver that...