Soon after moving to the secluded Norfolk village of Munding, Alex Darken has a disturbing encounter with the ageing poet Edward Nesbit and his young lover Laura. They are obsessively researching the lives of Sir Henry Agnew and his daughter Louisa, who lived in Munding in the nineteenth century and were deeply engaged in alchemical practices. By recovering the lost secret of the hermetic mysteries, Edward and Laura hope to find an alternative to the destructive materialism of the post-industrial world. Once drawn into their fervent quest for knowledge, Alex becomes entangled in a passionate and intense intrigue that reaches across two centuries. Lindsay Clarke's novel excited me more than any other English fiction for some time. - John Fowles, I'm awed by the web you've spun. Not only the beautiful complexities of it, but the fine texture of the threads. Full of wise things.