An audacious, unnerving satire of the twentieth century's most notorious figure. Liverpool, 1912. Young Adolf Hitler, a recent art-school dropout on the run from military service in Austria, turns up to stay with his brother Alois and sister-in-law Bridget. Idle and dirty, Adolf spends his days sprawled on the couch, gripped by paranoia that Austrian officials are tailing him. Adolf's poor conduct - constant sponging, an ill temper, and a refusal to assist in Alois' questionable business ventures - quickly draws the ire of his family. Surely this is a young man who will never amount to anything?

Beryl Bainbridge was the author of seventeen novels, two travel books and five plays for stage and televi­sion. She was shortlisted for the Booker Prize five times, and among other awards, won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Whit­bread Novel of the Year and the Guardian Fiction Prize. She died in 2010.