A modern historical novel set mainly in the UK from 1934 to 1941. A young American scholar arrives in Cambridge University to study art history in 1934, when distinguished scholars such as Berenson , Fritz Saxl, Venturi, Gombrich, and others were alive. In a turbulent, highly sexed and academically intense environment, he is a sharp and charismatic witness. The cast of characters also mirrors, in a mixed kaleidoscopic form, the notorious group of communist Cambridge friends who were active in the field of politics as well as the arts. Through the influence of his godfather, a very wealthy American with dual British and USA nationality living in London, the narrator also gains an entree into the leading circles of government. Just as he experiences the debate between Fascism and Communism as argued by the Cambridge acolytes such as Burgess, Hobsbawm, Blunt, so also he is a confidential observer of the dire political conflict between the appeasers led by Chamberlain, and his opponents, led by Churchill and Cecil.Written with the authority, and something of the style, of non-fiction, this fictionalised story of a crucial period in modern history has a raw and only too credible denoument.
It is an era when the skies darken and the ultimate storm must smash through these institutions regardless of their antique strength. The ground beneath the reader's feet becomes suddenly and hideously unreliable.