Eric Alford's safe and romantic life on the peaceful Gaspe Coast is shattered by his decision to follow his elder brother John (the Pilgrim and The Chaplain) into the 1914-18 cataclysm of death and destruction known as the "Great War for Civilisation". By his thundering Howitzer, Gunner Alford assaults the Hun through every major Canadian battle of WWI: Ypres, Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, Hill 70, The Somme, and "The Hundred Days" that ended the conflict.
A developing romance with a lovely Londoner is cut short by a German shell. Evacuated to a Rouen field hospital, he is surrounded by hellish wounds: blindness, amputations, and gas-inflicted horrors. Finally, back in Blighty among other shell-shock victims, he recovers and returns to his Gaspe home, bereft of his London love and changed forever.

Paul Almond, OC, was one of Canada's preeminent film and television directors, and has directed and produced over 130 television dramas for the CBC, BBC, ABC and Granada Television (SevenUp). He has now turned his talents to writing a series of novels based on his family's own PIONEERing adventures in Canada: The Alford Saga, five of which have been published, (The DESERTER, The Survivor, The Pioneer, The Pilgrim, and The Chaplain) and three more to come over the next two years (The Gunner, The Hero, and The Inheritor). Paul Almond lives on the Gaspé Peninsula in Quebec and Malibu, California. www.paulalmond.com

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