Peculiar Ground - Ltd EdUnlike anything Ive read. With its broad scope and its intimacy and exactness, it cuts through the apparatus of life to the vivid moment. Haunting and huge, and funny and sensuous. Its wonderful. Tessa Hadley It is the 17th century and a wall is being built around a great house. Wychwood is an enclosed world, its ornamental lakes and majestic avenues planned by Mr Norris, landscape maker. A world where everyone has something to hide after decades of

The far-flung and isolated citadel of Ar

Italian politicians

Sebastian can't tell a joke to save his life

a skeletal hand

handsome nobleman

A Trick of the Light is at the same time an adventure and an examination of loyalties and allegiances both emotional and political

But one does not need to have read a single word of The Pickwick Papers to be enthralled by the story of how this extraordinary novel came to be

Kathy sets off to follow some leads of her own - and finds out that going solo can be very dangerous

and a film script

reluctant as he is to let this event be smugly relegated to the category of 'not worth dealing with'

Two men lie in a welter of blood in the vestry of St Matthew's Church

from the Libyan coast to the Italian border during which they gain good friends and encounter ruthless enemies in their quest for freedom