As if organising St Cedd's church fete were not enough for Mrs Maxie, later that mellow July afternoon her son Stephen sprang the news of his engagement. By morning, Sally Julep, her new parlour-maid - unmarried mother and minor village scandal - was dead.
Young Stalin is a remarkable adventure story about an exceptional, turbulent young man, born in exoticism, raised in the church, fancying himself a poet, then embracing revolutionary idealism and thereby finding his romantic Messianic mission in life.