A wanderer struggles to understand his uncle's downfall six years after a financial catastrophe

George Chell has never met a man as witty, as charming, or as brilliant as his uncle. Edward Chell was a financial titan, ruling over a kingdom of profit with an emperor's savage grace—until a stock market crash revealed that everything he had was built on sand. It destroyed both empire and emperor in one fell swoop, and nephew George was cast out into the world in the aftermath. For six years, he has wandered Britain, staying in grubby hotels and trying as hard as he can to forget his uncle. But when an article in the Financial Times reminds him of all he has lost, George has no choice but to confront the past in an attempt to understand the disaster that upended his life.

Raised in the provincial backwater of a Norwich council flat, George was dazzled by the bright lights of the London financial world—but to save himself, he will have to look at that world with new eyes.