In 1979 in Ireland, J.G. Farrell drowned while fishing from the rocks near his home. He was 43, and it had only been 6 years since he had won the Booker Prize for his novel The Siege of Krishnapur. A man who elevated privacy to a high art, Farrell's leagcy would be the "Empire Trilogy," now hailed as a classic of the 20th century, as well as a lingering mystery. Farrell had always been a man who baffled even those closest to him. Based on her access to J.G. Farrell's family and friends, as well as his notebooks and personal correspondence, Lavinia Greacen's biography disentangles not only the full circumstances of the novelist's death, but the story of his life and how it informed everything he wrote.