**SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025**'A masterpiece, told with virtuosic economy… Pure brilliance from the first to the (devastating) last sentence’ India Knight 'Brilliance on every page' Samantha Harvey'Spare, visceral, urgent, compelling.This book doesn't f**k around' Gary Stevenson‘So brilliant and wise on chance, love, sex, money' David NichollsThrough 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 livesFifteen-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. ‘How do I get out of a reading slump? This is the book to do that’ Rhianna Dhillon, BBC Radio 4'A revelatory novel' Sunday Times'So much searing insight into the way we live now' Observer‘Refreshing, illuminating and true’ Financial Times'Compelling and elegant, merciless and poignant' Tessa Hadley'One of the year’s best novels to date' Daily Mail‘Utterly engrossing and I read it all in a day’ 5* reader review‘I was hooked and tried to read this book with any spare moment that I had' 5* reader reviewA ‘Best Book of 2025’ in the Guardian, Observer, Financial Times, Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail