The plot of The Glass Hotel centers on a Madoff-style Ponzi scheme built and operated by a conman called Jonathan Alkaitis, a shamelessly criminal enterprise that upends and in some cases destroys the lives of those it touches. The novelist’s interests, however, are far more extensive than a simple exposure of the commonplace greed that has gripped the financial sector for decades. Mandel’s preoccupation here is with the various worlds that exist side-by-side, the porousness of the boundaries between them, and the compromises and excuses individuals make to preserve their status in the more privileged strata.

The novel, though set over several decades, anticipates our current crisis, and asks searching questions about how people react to disasters. The atmosphere is nervy and febrile, with characters teetering on the edge between reality and fantasy, wholly isolated from one another, and absorbed in delusion.

Emily St. John Mandel’s last novel, Station Eleven, was, I’m told, a bestseller. That was news to me. One positive consequence of my ignorance on this point was that I was able to pick up The Glass Hotel with no preconceptions whatsoever and with none of those distracting questions – will it be as good as her last book? Mandel is a very accomplished writer and I’m now looking forward to exploring her earlier novels.