There is no more diligent soothsayer than Thomas Keneally, forever poking about among the entrails of the European past for some clue, previously missed, to the development of a present that no rational seer before about 1950 could have predicted. His last three books have drawn attention to significant stages in the attenuation of the old European chivalric virtues, and their replacement by bloodthirst, vengeful greed, and the tyranny of the majority. Now, in A Victim of the Aurora, he focuses on two related aspects of that corruption—the ease with which old-fashioned virtues like loyalty can be manipulated for bad ends by charismatic leaders, and the willingness with which even their victims will co-operate. (p. 382)

Mr Keneally's most immediately striking achievement in this new book is to make you simply want to know what happens next. A Victim of the Aurora is an excellent whodunit and a splendid...