Dronfield writes with a breezy good humour and insouciant flair and…offers some thought-provoking meditations on the nature of fiction and its relationship with reality.He also has a flawless control of the mechanisms of fiction,playing his literary tricks with baffling dexterity.

 Madagascar Rhodes was probably the mast famous author in the world. His magical novel The Alchemist's Apprentice enchanted millions of readers, making him a household name to rival.., well, any other household name you care to mention.And yet,strangely, you've never heard of him. Or his amazing book. In fact, it's almost as if Madagascar Rhodes never existed.

 To unravel the tangled threads of reality and - what? Fantasy? Dream? Plain old-fashioned fabrication? - you have to go back to the beginning. To a rather odd New Year's Eve party in 1996. Or earlier, to that chance encounter with a ghostly girl in a sunny garden. Or perhaps it all really began when an unsuccessful novelist called Roderick Bent embarked on a train journey from King's Cross to Ely and found himself travelling into a nightmare.

Part One THE GARDEN

Part Two THE BOOK

Part Three THE LILLYSTONES

Part Four THE ALCHEMIST'S APPRENTICE

Part Five KISMET

Postscript