The controlled exuberance of the language is the chief pleasure of this novel. I must quote at some length in order to convey its rhythms: ‘Tiny buds of possibility had been forming on the long-withered stems that constituted the Paratha family tree. Small nervous things, these buds stirred tentatively. They required sun. They required oxygen. They required certain warmer-than-average temperatures.’ The prose only falters from this magisterial assurance occasionally, when the use of ‘like’ in place of ‘as if’ mars the otherwise perfect syntax.

The plot? Several characters with odd-sounding names are involved in various transactions in two towns named Pitch and Canyon, situated on either side of a mountain range in an unspecified country, somewhere around the turn of the nineteenth century. There is a circus, there is a storm; there is a murder to be solved, and a family secret to be discovered. Not every character’s actions are explained; not every thread is neatly tied. The novel is perhaps a little slow to get started. Persist with it, nonetheless. You will be beguiled.