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Feb 19, 2013
As successful, happily married neurosurgeon Henry Perowne negotiates his way through the crowds protesting the invasion of Iraq (he's on his way to a squash game), he gets drawn into a confrontation with Baxter, a small-time thug, whom he embarrasses in the course of defusing the situation. That same evening, Baxter visits the Perowne home to exact revenge for what he sees as his public humiliation, resulting in a scene so tense you'll be able to feel it. Though the events of this novel take place during the course of a single Saturday, Henry is a compassionate man who considers the world around him, so discourses on surgery, terrorism, art, and gratitude are all part of this "wise and poignant portrait of the way we live now" (Publishers Weekly). Fiction A to Z newsletter February 2013.