The Steep Approach to Garbadale [Hardcover]

** 'The most imaginative British novelist of his generation' THE TIMES For DEAD AIR: **'A Buchanesque adventure yarn set in 21st century London' THE TIMES **'A thrilling read, it's a dazzlingly clever, edgy, suspenseful book' SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY

'Banks still has the ability to make the reader smile with
pleasure'

'Banks is at his best in moments of high drama with extremes of
human emotions'

'Sentence by sentence, Banks is unrivalled for clarity and
pleasure ... his most accomplished book since The Crow Road'

'Banks is unsurpassed at presenting clear, small-scale, central
images, with behind them looming shapes in chiaroscuro'

'As good as anything Banks has ever written, if not better ... A
great game of consequences'

'[Banks's] lightness of narrative touch is marvellous ... Banks is
a great popular - though far from populist - entertainer'

'Written with exuberance and wit.'

Dark family secrets, a long-lost love affair and a multi-million pound gaming business lie at the heart of Iain Banks's fabulous new novel. The Wopuld family built its fortune on a board game called Empire! ? now a hugely successful computer game. So successful, the American Spraint Corp wants to buy the firm out. Young renegade Alban, who has been evading the family clutches for years, is run to ground and persuaded to attend the forthcoming family gathering ? part birthday party, part Extraordinary General Meeting ? convened by Win, Wopuld matriarch and most powerful member of the board, at Garbadale, the family's highland castle. Being drawn back into the bosom of the clan brings an inevitable and disconcerting confrontation with Alban's past. What drove his mother to take her own life? And is he yet ready to see Sophie, his beautiful, enchanting cousin and teenage love, at the EGM? Grandmother Win's revelations will radically alter Alban's perspective for ever.

Iain Banks came to widespread and controversial public notice with the publication of his first novel, THE WASP FACTORY, in 1984. He has since gained enormous popular and critical acclaim for both his mainstream and his science fiction novels.