July 1965: This book contains two or more love stories; however, its main theme is the protagonists' realization during a critical moment for the country, through the odyssey of a romantic quest. "Athens, the most open city in the world," exclaims with admiration a repatriate after eighteen years of enforced absence.

Intense cultural life, struggles of the studying youth, new forces on the political scene, ideas and concerns characterize the "Athenian Spring." In contrast, the tumults and unorthodox loves of a group of American exiles and other foreigners are presented, where agents conspire unhindered in collaboration with royal men, military rulers, right-wing politicians, dissatisfied members of the ruling party, and figures from the economic oligarchy.

Chronologically, the novel covers just twenty days, from July 4 to 23, the day of the burial of Sotiris Petroulas. A horizontal slice through the trunk of historical time: The Apostasy, the coercion of Papandreou to resign, the difficulties and dead ends of the Left. In an environment that does not stop changing - for the worse - memories and figures from the Division, the Resistance, the Civil War are recalled, and what is to come is envisioned with nightmarish clarity: "We had once again entered the constellation of the shadow state and terrorism... Above the lost Spring, the vulture of the coup hovered, ready to swoop down and tear apart the country," says the repatriate at the end.

And yet he, before the open grave of the hero, will say: "Blessed are those who, in the marble-threshed fields, defeat Death, like Sotiris Petroulas." (From the presentation on the back cover of the book)

With the subtitle 'Tenebrous Years,' Tsirkas promised a new trilogy in the style of 'Ungoverned Cities,' which would historically cover the period of the dictatorship. 'The Lost Spring,' however, which was to be the first volume, turned out to be the author's swan song. In all the reprints after his death, this subtitle was retained not only to prevent the arbitrary alteration of the work's identity but also because this arrangement of the cover signifies the ideal extension of known events. That is, the author's ambitious plan, after the adventure in the Middle East, to recount again through the means of art the grim Greek experience that he also experienced painfully.