A brilliant, emotionally wrenching new novel from the author of Atonement and Amsterdam. Soon to be a major new film adaptation. All this sorrow had common themes, there was a human sdness to it, but it continued to fascinate her. She believed she brought reasonableness to hopeless situations. Fiona Maye, a leading High Court judge, renowned for her fierce intelligence and sensitivity is called on to try an urgent case. For religious reasons, a seventeen-year-old boy is refusing the medical treatment that could save his life. Time is running out. She visits the boy in hospital - an encounter which stirs long-buried feelings in her and powerful new emotions in the boy. But it is Fiona who must ultimately decide whether he lives or dies and her judgement will have momentous consequences for them both. A writer who has no doubt changed the landscape of British fiction, Ian McEwan’s diverse, experimental literary portfolio encompasses Gothic short stories, dark psychological dramas such as The Cement Garden and Enduring Love as well as the spy thriller Sweet Tooth, an epic of wartime, Atonement, and state-of-the-nation novels Amsterdam (for which he won the Booker Prize), Saturday, Solar and The Children Act.