“The moment I heard how McAra died I should have walked away. I can see that now. I should have said, ‘Rick, I'm sorry, this isn't for me, I don't like the sound of it,' finished my drink and left. But he was such a good storyteller, Rick — I often thought he should have been the writer and I the agent — that once he'd started talking there was never any question I wouldn't listen, and by the time he had finished, I was done for.”

After five books set firmly in the past, Robert Harris returns with a contemporary novel that brings the reader face to face with some of the biggest issues of our time — the result is a gripping and genuinely thrilling read.