NATIONAL BESTSELLER - BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST - From the bestselling author of The Sense of an Ending comes an "extraordinary ... first rate" novel (The New York Times Book Review) that follows the lives of two very different British men and explores the grand tapestry of late-Victorian Britain. As boys, George, the son of a Midlands vicar, and Arthur, living in shabby genteel Edinburgh, find themselves in a vast and complex world at the heart of the British Empire. Years later--one struggling with his identity in a world hostile to his ancestry, the other creating the world's most famous detective while in love with a woman who is not his wife--their fates become inextricably connected.