At fifty-seven, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden, reading historical novels, listening to a bit of light jazz. Then Katie, his tempestuous daughter, announces that she is getting remarried, to Ray. Her family is not pleased - as her brother Jamie observes, Ray has 'strangler's hands'. Katie can't decide if she loves Ray, or loves the way he cares for her son Jacob, and her mother Jean is a bit put out by the way the wedding planning gets in the way of her affair with one of her husband's former colleagues. And the tidy and pleasant life Jamie has created crumbles when he fails to invite his lover, Tony, to the dreaded nuptials.

Unnoticed in the uproar, George discovers a sinister lesion on his hip, and quietly begins to lose his mind.

Mark Haddon is an author, illustrator and screenwriter who has written fifteen books for children and won two BAFTAs. His bestselling novel,The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-timewon seventeen literary prizes, including the Whitbread Award. His poetry collection,The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village Under the Sea, was published by Picador in 2005, and his last novel,The Red House, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2012. His most recent title is short story collectionThe Pier Falls.He lives in Oxford.

A brilliantly funny, bestselling novel by the award-winning author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.