The novel is a moving story about a father (Alex) who uses the game Minecraft to reconnect and communicate with his eight-year-old autistic son (Sam), inspired by the author's own family experiences.
The book is a heartwarming story detailing how headmistress Marie Stubbs transformed St George's, a struggling inner-city comprehensive school in London, which had been threatened with closure after a damning Ofsted report and the murder of its previous headmaster in 1995. She implemented a combination of discipline, imagination, and modern management techniques to improve attendance and examination results.
The book is part of a series by Sparrow that explores famous and infamous criminal cases from history, mixing historical accounts with cases he encountered personally during his long legal career, which included serving as a judge on the International Court in Bangkok, Thailand, for over 20 years.
The narrative, spanning the 1850s to the 1870s, begins in Philadelphia in 1860, where Lew Crandall, often called "The Golden Prince," has a promising future and is married to Elizabeth Butterfield. His life is shattered after he unwisely exposes a powerful politician using incriminating evidence found in his deceased father's letters.
With the outbreak of the Civil War, Lew leaves for Washington, where he again encounters the unscrupulous figures he had previously angered, leading to his downfall. The story then evolves into a sprawling saga of "murder, rape, revenge, betrayal" as Lew loses his family, fortune, and freedom, surviving solely for the purpose of exacting revenge against the man responsible for orchestrating his ruin. The book is noted for incorporating the events of the Civil War and how national events influenced the characters' lives.
