Nicholas Gleaves

Joanna finds an unidentified man dead in a lift in a underground car park after a devastating flood, police assumes that he became trapped as the waters rose, but she is obsessed with discovering what happened to him.

In 1985, against the backdrop of Thatcherism, Brian Jackson enrolls in the University of Bristol, a scholarship boy from seaside Essex with a love of knowledge for its own sake and a childhood spent watching University Challenge, a college quiz show. At Bristol he tries out for the Challenge team and falls under the spell of Alice, a lovely blond with an extensive sexual past.