During a lunar eclipse, seven friends gather for dinner and decide to play a game in which they must share with each other the content of every message, email or phone call they receive throughout the evening.

Lionel Twain invites the world's five greatest detectives to a 'dinner and murder'. Included are a blind butler, a deaf-mute maid, screams, spinning rooms, secret passages, false identities and more plot turns and twists than are decently allowed.

Eerily compelling -- William Leith Evening Standard A quietly incendiary piece of writing, at times heartbreaking, at other times really wonderfully funny ... a profoundly humane, funny and smart novel. Independent A novel shot through with Banks's trademark humour, political engagement and hope. -- Louise Welsh The Times Wonderfully exuberant ... written with the life-enhancing verve characteristic of Banks's best work. Scotsman Vintage Banks, full of heart, black comedy and vitriol. Mirror A compelling, raw book -- William Leith Evening Standard Banks' handling of big, complex themes is skilful and satisfying, and he concludes on a quietly moving note of compassion. The List Infallibly entertaining Telegraph Banks's relaxed fluency - the direct, funny, unpretentious intelligence of his writing, which, along with his teeming imagination, made him perhaps Britain's best-loved major contemporary novelist. Guardian