This is a delicious book! I loved every minute of its magical story-telling and found it difficult to put down. Andrew Nicoll succeeds in creating a vivid and atmospheric portrayal of the town of Dot, in an unspecified part of the Baltic, where the mayor, Tibo Krovic is in love with his secretary, Mrs. Agathe Stopak. The reader becomes totally involved in these two characters’ lives. Agathe has suffered the anguish of the death of her baby, and the subsequent rejection of her husband. Tibo Krovic nurses a secret passion for Agathe which in turn delights and torments him. Their developing relationship is full of complications, misunderstandings, humour, pain and pleasure. The story is deeply human and emotionally strikes a chord but it also has flights of fantasy and magic which create a fable-like atmosphere. A gem of a novel and a real pleasure to read. It is the author’s first, but I hope there will be more!
`A triumph of tone, very moving, completely convincing' - ANDREW MARR `A Baltic Brief Encounter' - INDEPENDENT Every morning, Mayor Tibo Krovic stops off at the local cafe on his way to work. He drinks his Viennese coffee with extra figs, leaves a bag of sweets for the owner, and then continues on to his office. There he awaits the arrival of his secretary: the beautiful, married, but lonely, Agathe Stopak. In the respectable town of Dot, there is nothing the good Mayor Tibo can do about his love for Mrs Stopak. Until one day Agathe accidentally drops her lunch into the fountain and a family tragedy is revealed. In that moment, everything changes. The Good Mayor is a magical story of fate and chance, of loss and love.
