Azhar Abidi’s first novel, Passarola Rising (2006), told of some amazing adventures in a seventeenth-century flying ship, and it was a delight. His new novel could hardly be more different, yet gives just as much pleasure. It also tells a more probable story.

Abidi is a Pakistani now living in Melbourne, where he maintains a family and a job in finance, as well, apparently, as meditating on the implications of these choices. It does not surprise that his protagonist, Samad, who has also migrated to Melbourne and married Kate, gives thought to several multicultural issues, particularly when the couple visit Karachi for a home-town celebration of the marriage.