First published 2018
London, 1945. Fourteen-year-old Nathaniel watches his parents disappear, leaving him and his sister Rachel in the hands of a man called The Moth. Their new guardian operates in shadows, surrounded by a crew of unusual companions who may be criminals. Nathaniel suspects danger but finds himself drawn into their world of secrets and protection. The Moth's associates educate the children in unconventional ways, though their true identities remain unclear. Twelve years pass before Nathaniel begins piecing together what really happened during those formative months. His investigation forces him to confront the gap between what he experienced as a boy and what he can understand as a man. Memory proves unreliable as Nathaniel navigates between fact and recollection, searching for truth about the people who shaped his adolescence in a city still scarred by war.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, mystery, 21st-century
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: London
Period: 1945, 1957
285 pages · Hardcover · Knopf
Content warnings: war