From the acclaimed author of An Instance of the Fingerpost comes a dazzling new novel which weaves together Oxford in 1960, a pastoral fantasy world, and a dystopian future.In 1960, Henry Lytten is an Oxford don who dabbles in espionage and fiction writing. Rosie Wilson is the quick-witted, curious fifteen-year-old girl who feeds Professor Lytten's cat. Several hundred years in the future, living in a dystopian society on the Island of Mull, Angela Meerson is a psychomathematician who has discovered the world-changing potential of a powerful new machine. Somewhere, sometime, Jay is a scholar's apprentice in an idyllic, pastoral land. Who these people really are, and how their stories come together, will be revealed in Iain Pears's fascinating puzzle of a novel.