A SUNDAY TIMES TOP 100 NOVEL OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY. New York, a small town on the tip of Manhattan Island, 1746. One rainy evening, a charming and handsome young stranger fresh off the boat from England pitches up to a counting house on Golden Hill Street, with a suspicious yet compelling proposition — he has an order for a thousand pounds in his pocket that he wishes to cash. But can he be trusted? This is New York in its infancy, a place where a young man with a fast tongue can invent himself afresh, fall in love, and find a world of trouble . . . Winner of the Costa First Novel Award 2016; Winner of the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2017; Winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize 2017