I hope that I have created a highly readable novel centred on the intense, resilient but always tested friendship of two ambitious young men – one obsessively ambitious. The story could at a stretch be promoted as a supercharged Great Gatsby equivalent for the new millennium.
One is aspiring, charismatic Marcus: determined to escape his poor state school background to become rich and powerful. He succeeds, largely … as he accumulates wealth. The other is the narrator: privately-educated Daniel: a strong admirer of Marcus and his close friend from their teens.
They belong to a group from university comprising a core seven: three couples and Marcus. Daniel and partner Laura, Joss and Katelyn, Sash and Rod.
Violence, sometimes sexual, threatens as the group pass through university and into the outside world. They initially attend the same college and go to the same parties. Two of their closest female friends are mysteriously assaulted, separately at two of those parties.
Marcus ostentatiously quits the student world to pursue a career in the City before he starts to build a large property empire – mainly in Spain from the mid-90s and into the new millennium. His own Xanadu. It takes in property from Puerto Banus, west of Malaga, and hundreds of miles east to Alicante.
Daniel remains with long-term partner Laura. However, Marcus switches from one partner to the next. His property world becomes threatened by his complicated love life and persistent problems in the building market. He has to face growing crisis in the new millennium.