Paul Torday, who gave us the comic novel Salmon Fishing in the Yemen in 2006, returns here with his fourth novel. Torday writes with confidence and clarity, like many other writers – such as Toni Morrison and Annie Proulx – who start to produce work late in life.

Torday’s latest novel contains references to the business world, a world the author is familiar with. Two friends, Henry and Eck, have a chance encounter with stranger Charlie Summers while on holiday in France. When they return to their lives back in England, Charlie appears first to Henry, taking him up on a casual offer of a place to stay (much to the annoyance of Henry’s wife). Later, he does the same to Eck. Charlies is a drifter and a bit of a charlatan, but what he does seem to bring out in those lives he enters is a sense of honesty, paradoxically delivered through his deception. This novel engages on many levels.