Eileen Hughes, twenty years old and never before out of Northern Ireland, has arrived in London for a week's holiday with Bernard and Mona McAuley, who are not only her employers but also, she believes, her friends. In Brian Moore's masterful handling, this seemingly simple story darkens and expands, exploring the nature of obsession - both spiritual and erotic - with an elegance, anarchic playfulness, and imagination that recall Henry Green or Muriel Spark. “This is the most amazing book . . . [Moore's] characters are piercingly real, his scenes supercharged with emotional intensity, lurking evil, and threatened innocence.” - Chicago Sun-Times   “Of all our present novelists he is for me the one whose books most immediately evoke and touch my private feelings and fears.” - New Statesman