The Wopuld family built its fortune on a board game called Empire! - now a hugely successful computer game. So successful, the American Spraint Corp wants to buy the firm out. Young renegade Alban, who has been living wild and evading the family tentacles for years, is run to ground and persuaded to attend the forthcoming gathering - part birthday celebration, part Extraordinary General Meeting - convened by Win, the Wopuld matriarch and most powerful member of the board.

Being drawn back into the bosom of the clan brings an inevitable and disconcerting confrontation with Alban's past. What drove his mother to take her own life? And is he yet over Sophie, his beautiful, enchanting cousin and teenage love? Grandmother Win's revelations will radically alter Alban's perspective for ever.

Full of his trademark warmth, humanity and inventiveness, this wonderfully vivid story of family turmoil, compromised loyalties and hidden origins is Iain Banks's most compelling novel since The Crow Road.