Atonement (Vintage Future Classics)

'Fierce contemporaneity, an acrobat imagination, social comment, sardonic wit . . . the peculiar sub-culture of cult religion is a natural for Banks, and Luskentyrianism is a fine creation' The Times

A little knowledge can be a very dangerous thing . . .

Innocent in the ways of the world, an ingénue when it comes to pop and fashion, the Elect of God of a small but committed Stirlingshire religious cult, Isis Whit is no ordinary teenager.

When her cousin Morag - Guest of Honour at the Luskentyrian's four-yearly Festival of Love - disappears after renouncing her faith, Isis is marked out to venture among the Unsaved and bring the apostate back into the fold. But the road to Babylondon (as Sister Angela puts it) is a treacherous one, particularly when Isis discovers that Morag appears to have embraced the ways of the Unsaved with spectacular abandon . . .

'One of the most relentless voyaging imaginations around' Scotsman