Disappearing
The Story of a Modern Would-Be Nomad, The People He Upset and the Many Who Died
Published on 29. August 2019
Book
Paperback/Softback
320 pages
978-1-9161944-0-3 (ISBN)
Description
You may assume that most of this book is fantasy, but the facts check out. You sense that the author has been there, from rock climbing to Van Gogh, from flamenco to the Biafran war, from begging in Winchester to travelling through the Sahara. Much of the story may be true. It could even mostly be true. Two parcels of fifty copies each of Disappearing were ordered to confidential addresses in London and Brussels. A file was compiled to aid a decision on whether to suppress publication, parts of which were leaked to the Daily Telegraph. Names of the individuals quoted have been redacted. No censorship was ordered.
'The book explains how an individual can divest themselves of identity, go off grid and use terrorist-supporting Hawala to move money. Heal’s success is a direct threat to our banking system and a danger to Western civilisation.' Senior Executive Officer, International Monetary Fund, Informal Funds Transfers
'Any story that quotes freely from Aeschylus, Ascherson, Bash¿, Bowles, Cervantes, Dostoevsky, Eliot, Herodotus, Kant, Larkin, Mandelstam, and a dozen more, must have something going for it.' Professor, Oxford University, attached to the Home Office
'He snipes at most aspects of European government. If what he says wasn’t so inherently dangerous, I would recommend ignoring this petulant book.' Senior Conservative politician, attached to National Counter Terrorism Security Office
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Illustrations
58 mono photographs, 4 maps
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 21 mm
Weight
722 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-9161944-0-3 (9781916194403)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Most of the author's biography, including his many names, is explained within Disappearing. 'Heal' went to grammar school in the West Midlands, supporting himself through a window cleaning business and by digging ditches for Britain's new motorways. He was a leading rock climber and, later, a SCUBA diving instructor. He travelled extensively in his younger years, usually by hitchhiking, through much of Europe, North Africa and the Near and Middle East, reaching India. He briefly joined the RAF and then trained as an airline pilot. He quit and was off the radar for a year. He resurfaced as a journalist and then joined IBM for twenty years, five of them in Africa, and later led the multi-million pound buy-out of their UK marketing department. He was chairman of the regional theatre In Basingstoke, worked as an oak furniture designer and maker, and advised and funded internet start-ups and small businesses. He received a doctorate in history from Bristol University, aged sixty-five. Aspects of his thesis ¿ academically reviewed as 'first-rate, well-written with immensely impressive scholarship' ¿ were turned into a variety of publications with over 5,000 sales. In 2018, he wroteSound of Hunger, a well-received social history of the lives of two German brothers, u-boat captains in the First World War.