Book review: Lingua Franca

MILES PLATTING is the disengaged founder of naming rights company Lingua Franca, which matches corporate sponsors with cash-strapped towns.

After his staff head to Barrow-In- Furness to rename it Birdseye, the legacy of a recent tragedy hanging over them, he wakes alone in a mysterious hospital.

It is where no one is permitted to speak and the nurses only want him to write his story.