Quentin Coldwater's life is changed forever by an apparently chance encounter: when he turns up for his entrance interview to Princeton he finds his interviewer dead - but a strange envelope bearing Quentin's name leads him down a very different path to any he'd ever imagined.

The envelope, and the mysterious manuscript it contains, leads to a secret world of obsession and privilege, a world of freedom and power and, for a while, it's a world that seems to answer all Quentin's desires. But the idyll cannot last - and when it's finally shattered, Quentin is drawn into something darker and far more dangerous than anything he could ever have expected ...

PRAISE FOR LEV GROSSMAN

'A genuine treat ... It also moves so fast that readers won't realize how smart it is' San Francisco Chronicle

'Fabulously entertaining ... By turns fascinating, compelling, and deliciously disturbing. It's an intelligent thriller that truly is just that: intelligently thrilling' Boston Globe

'Mesmerizing from start to finish' Baltimore Sun