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‘A big, bustling novel about love, friendship, money, ambition and the 21st century, packed with humour and intelligent observations … I finished it tear-stained’ Sunday Times

‘Will have you hooked … an ode to the enduring power of male friendship’ The Times Best Summer Books

‘My book of the summer’ Janice Turner

‘Thrilling’ Guardian

Longlisted for the FT and Schroders Business Book of the Year 2025

For the first time since university, James and Roland’s paths through life – one drawn in straight lines, the other squiggled and meandering – began to cross…

James Drayton has always found things too easy. By the time he leaves university, he’s still searching for a challenge worthy of his ambitions, one that will fulfil the destiny he thinks awaits him.

Roland Mackenzie, on the other hand, is an impulsive risk-taker, a charismatic drifter with boundless enthusiasm but a knack for derailing his own attempts to get started in life.

When a chance encounter in a pub reunites these old acquaintances, it sets them on an unpredictable course through the upheavals of the 21st century, and triggers an unlikely alliance. Against the backdrop of the financial crash and its aftermath, they strive to create something that outlasts them, something that will matter.

Drayton and Mackenzie is a stunningly ambitious, immediately engaging and ultimately deeply moving novel both about trying to make your mark on the world, and about how a friendship might be the most important thing in life.