Through chance, luck and choice, one man’s life takes him from a modest
apartment in Hungary to the elite society of London – in this
captivating new novel about the forces that make and break our lives
Fifteen-year-old István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment
complex in Hungary. New to the town and shy, he is unfamiliar with the
social rituals at school and soon becomes isolated, with his neighbour
– a married woman close to his mother’s age – as his only companion. As
these encounters shift into a clandestine relationship, István’s life
spirals out of control.
Years later, rising through the ranks from the army to the elite
circles of London's super-rich, he navigates the twenty-first century's
tides of money and power. Torn between love, intimacy, status, and
wealth, his newfound riches threaten to undo him completely.