The Gameshouse is an unusual institution.
Many know it as the place where fortunes can be made and lost through games of chess, backgammon -- every game under the sun.
But a select few, who are picked to compete in the higher league, know that some games are played for higher stakes -- those of politics and empires, of economics and kings . . .
In 1930s Bangkok, one higher league player has just been challenged to a game of hide and seek. The board is all of Thailand -- and the seeker may use any means possible to hunt down his quarry -- be it police, government, strangers or even spies . . .
Claire North is a pseudonym for Catherine Webb, a Carnegie Medal-nominated author whose first book was written when she was just fourteen years old. She went on to write several other novels in various genres, before publishing her first major work as Claire North, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, in 2014. It was a critically acclaimed success, receiving rave reviews and an Audie nomination, and was included in the Washington Post's Best Books of the Year list. Her next novel, Touch, was also in the Washington Post's Best Books of the Year, in 2015. Catherine currently works as a theatre lighting designer and is a fan of big cities, urban magic, Thai food and graffiti-spotting. She lives in London.