Art historian Nicholas Ochterlonie is the very model of a modern English gentleman, with a perfectly ordered life in which everything – or so he thinks – is exactly as it seems. But when his wife inexplicably demands a divorce, he finds himself diving into uncertainty like a junkie with a new drug. Soon he is risking his professional reputation, breaking the law, and embarking on a delirious affair with the mysterious Julian, beautiful and badly damaged by her past with a Russian gangster.

Protecting Julian from the Mafya and challenging his colleagues’ pet convictions give Nicholas an intoxicating new sense of himself: the dashing hero, unafraid to grapple with difficult truths. Of course, all addicts believe they’re in control … until they aren’t any more.

“The plotting is deft, the characters interesting, and the passages about authenticating paintings are as exciting as the book itself” – Sunday Times of London

“Both a splendid mystery and a first-class novel” – Jerusalem Post