Product Description It is 1948 and Aleksandr, a major in the MGB (the forerunner of the KGB) is sent to an isolated psychiatric clinic to investigate one of the patients there. The patient is a man long presumed dead - a now severely incapacitated veteran of the Second World War, who seems unable to remember any of his past. Twenty-four years later, Aleksandr is haunted by the case. With his Stalinist faith under threat as the Cold War recedes, he interrogates his memories and the effect the case had on himself and on those he loved most. About the Author David Szalay's debut novel is set in the alcohol-sodden, materialistic, insecure and increasingly sham world of a telephone salesman. The salesman in question is Paul Rainey, a 40-year-old functioning alcoholic on anti-anxiety medication who commutes into London every day from Hove.