Horatius Ariel Otway may be a crook or he may be a hero. Certainly he is a charmer, and a survivor. Whether as a schoolboy in England of the Blitz or as a mysterious operator in Iraq during the 1958 coup, he fascinates or infuriates those with whom he comes into contact. Not least of his admirers is Sam Cork, who in a moment of panic betrays him to their bullying headmaster; years later he gets a chance to make amends when, as a reporter, he is sent out to cover the aftershocks of revolution and they meet again. In a novel whose two parts explore a child's experience and its relation to a grown man's, we observe the machinations behind the veneer of "old school" values, the military, the City, the press, the art-dealing world, diplomacy and the realms of charlatans, spies, men ofhonour and/or dishonour.