For Henry Perowne—a renowned neurosurgeon, happy husband, and the blessed father of a blues musician and a poet—it was supposed to be just another Saturday. There was no question of marching against the war in Iraq. Instead, he was enjoying the pleasures of life. And yet... A banal skirmish, and violence erupts in his sheltered existence. Henry may try to resume his day, but his old demons and the chaos of the world will constantly catch up with him during these twenty-four hours, at the end of which nothing will ever be the same again. While diabolically building suspense, McEwan interweaves global and private events with such virtuosity that this strange Saturday becomes a metaphor for an entire life, for all our fragile lives as Westerners caught up in the turmoil of the beginning of this century. And this profound reflection on chance and destiny, the respective powers of science and art, the quest for a meaning that would resist death, shows us once again, after Expiation, a novelist who has reached the fullness of his talent.