Now you know - Michael Frayn

Bit of a wide boy, Terry. Got a spot of form, eye for the ladies, a real rough diamond some might say. Not without his virtues, though, as his campaign for open government shows. No secrets, that's Terry's secret. Allied to charm, that is, of course.

Only one person finds it easy to resist his charm and counter his arguments and that's Hilary - one of the serious and dedicated young Civil Servants working in the Home Office in Westminster, who just happens to know the truth about the case in which Terry is currently interested. She despises him and everything he stands for. But then why is she to be found one evening walking through the back streets behind the Strand, to the run-down block where Terry's pressure group has its headquarters?

Now You Know takes on government campaigns, ambitious civil servants and determined pressure groups with Frayn's trade-mark wit. Michael Frayn's other novels include Headlong, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and Spies, which won the Whitbread Best Novel Award.

Michael Frayn was born in London in 1933 and began his career as a journalist on the Guardian and the Observer. His novels include Towards the End of the Morning, Headlong, Spies and Skios. His seventeen plays range from Noises Off, recently chosen as one of the nation's three favourite plays, to Copenhagen, which won the 1998 Evening Standard Award for Best Play of the Year and the 2000 Tony Award for Best Play. He is married to the writer Claire Tomalin.

The master farceur who conceived Noises Off is at work here for darker, more human purposes.
Independent on Sunday

A constantly witty writer . . . Frayn's book can best be compared to a pin: it is small, shiny, sharp. Its impact will, one hopes, prick people into examining or re-examining one of the most teasing moral problems of our times.
Spectator

So perceptive, gripping and well written.
Sunday Express

Clever, often funny, tightly constructed and psychologically astute.
Sunday Times