 It was one of four books picked for the shortlist for the Costa Book Awards prize for the debut novel of 2006, losing out to Stef Penney's "The Tenderness of Wolves", which went on to win the overall award for best novel of 2006.Beginning on a cold October night in 1854 in a dark passageway, the book's narrator tracks an innocent man whom he does not know and stabs him to death.The protagonist/narrator, Edward Glyver, then takes the reader back, recounting as a confession his tale of deceit, love, and revenge.