The Great Fire

In 1947, Aldred Leith, a decorated British veteran, travels through occupied Japan to write about the effects of the bomb at Hiroshima. His friend Peter Exley, an art historian, is prosecuting war crimes in the same ruined world.

In Japan Leith meets Helen Driscoll, a young Australian whose bond with her gravely ill brother Benedict is bound up with the books they share. As Leith finds himself drawn to her, the novel follows these characters across Asia, Britain and New Zealand as they try to build a future after the war.