Two old friends - Clive Linley and Vernon Halliday - meet at the funeral of gorgeous, witty Molly Lane.

Both men had been Molly's lovers years before their dazzling success; Clive is Britain's most eminent modern composer and Vernon is the editor of the respected broadsheet, The Judge. In the weeks that follow, Clive and Vernon's lives become bound together in ways neither could have imagined. Two dubious moral decisions and a pact made in extremis lead them both to the heart of Amsterdam, and to their doom.

''The novel twists and turns unexpectedly...McEwan has a master's control over his instrument'' Sunday Times