The man who rode Ampersand was in fact, an amateur jockey named Harry Cotton. Harry is a compulsive gambler. The resulting decline in his fortunes takes him through three decades of adventures, melancholy, heroic, and comic by turn, which cut a broad swathe of disorder through provincial race meetings, 'one -night cheap hotels' and three luxurious redoubts of the fabulously rich. The inhabitants and frequenters of these places are every bit as bizarre as their surroundings.
Ferdinand Mount is a reviewer, influential collumnist and political commentator. He has written for the Spectator, the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Times, and was editor of TheTimes Literary Supplement from 1991 to 2003. He was awarded the Hawthornden Prize for Of Love and Asthma (Vintage), the first of the Chronicle of Modern Twilight Series, and has since written Heads You Win, the bestselling memoir Cold Cream and, most recently, The New Few: A Very British Oligarchy. He lives in London.
