I really did have an empire, you know, said Dunbar. Have I ever told you the story of how it was stolen from me?

Henry Dunbar, the once all-powerful head of a global corporation, is not having a good day. In his dotage he handed over care of the family firm to his two eldest daughters, Abby and Megan. But relations quickly soured, leaving him doubting the wisdom of past decisions...

Now imprisoned in a care home in the Lake District with only a demented alcoholic comedian as company, Dunbar starts planning his escape. As he flees into the hills, his family is hot on his heels. But who will find him first, his beloved youngest daughter, Florence, or the tigresses Abby and Megan, so keen to divest him of his estate?

Edward St Aubyn is renowned for his masterwork, the five Melrose novels, which dissect with savage and beautiful precision the agonies of family life.Dunbaris a devastating family story and an excoriating novel for and of our times an examination of power, money and the value of forgiveness.

Edward St Aubyn was born in London. His superbly acclaimed Patrick Melrose novels areNever Mind, which won a Betty Trask Award,Bad News,Some Hope,Mother's Milk, which won the Prix Femina étranger and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, andAt Last. He is also the author of the novelsA Clue to the Exit,On the Edge, which was shortlisted for theGuardianFiction Prize andLost for Words, which won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize.