Book excerpt: "Mark Lattimer is chopped by a stranger in the heat of a riot. He has been attacked because he looks white and middle class, though he is a politically committed lawyer working for the poor and the nationalist movement in Jamaica. Now he is trapped, brought to bleed his life away in a small, airless room, cut off from doctors, ambulances, police. As he dies, he talks to his companions, his black lover and a fellow party worker, and drifts into memories of his past: his privileged childhood, his time in London and the RAF, his affairs and marriage and the moment when he gives his allegiance to the poor. But now what meaning can be given to his life and death?"--BOOK JACKET.