WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 1998 Two old friends
- Cline Linley & Vernon Halliday
- meet at the funeral of gorgeous witty Molly Lane Both men had been Molly's lovers years before their dazzling success; Clive is Britain's most eminent modern composer & Vernon is the editor of the respected broadsheet The Judge In the weeks that follow Clive & Vernon's lives become bound together in ways neither could have imagined Two dubious moral decisions & a pact made in extremis lead them both to the heart of Amsterdam