Set in Italy in the late 1840s, this is the story of Edmund Rivers, an exiled 19-year-old Englishman, who lives in his uncle's house and finds himself not only socially transgressive but also on the fringe of intrigue, murder and betrayal. The author's collection of stories Allegro Postillions won the Hawthornden and James Tait Black prizes for fiction and he recently published a book about Handel.