A young man discovers a manuscript and so begins a bizarre tale that brings together his grandfather, every conspiracy theory you've ever heard about the royal family and the true story about where the power of Number 10 really lies.



Readers of The Somnambulist may well recoginise the characters kept within a chalk circle in a cellar beneath Downing Street. With a gallery of vividly grotesque characters, a gleefully satiric take on modern life and a playful and highly literate style, this is an amazingly readable literary fantasy.



In his sequel to the crazed Victoriana of The Somnambulist, Jonathan Barnes brings his invention, reality, grotesquerie and curiosities bang-up-to-date.