An astounding, intense novel by the Booker-prize winning author of Midnight's Children. In the summer of 2000 New York is a city living at breakneck speed in an age of unprecedented decadence. Into this tumultuous city arrives Malik Solanka. His life has been a sequence of exits. He has left in his wake his country, family, not one but two wives, and now a child. But as his latest marriage disintegrates and the fury builds within him he fears he will become dangerous to those he loves. And so he steps out of his life once again and begins a new one in New York. But New York is a city boiling with fury. Around Malik cab drivers spout obscenities, a serial killer is murdering women with a lump of concrete, and the petty spats and bone-deep resentments of the metropolis threaten to engulf him, as his own thoughts, emotions and desires reach breaking point. 'Both a howl of rage and a love letter... Rushdie is a very great novelist - our greatest' Guardian