Major-General Sir Hector Macdonald was a hero of the British Empire, a low-born Scot decorated for his bravery inAfghanistan, theSudan and during the Boer War. Yet in 1903 he faced ruin, charged with homosexuality. On his way to be court-martialled, he stopped inParis, where he met Aleister Crowley, the occultist and self-styled 'Great Beast'! In this epic story of public lives and private dramas, Jake Arnott brings his imagination to bear on two fascinating men and an extraordinary encounter, at a time when the certainties of the Victorian imperialists were beginning to erode. Intriguing, atmospheric and surprising, this is a novel that brings the past alive and makes it resonate in the present.