Ireland, 2006. Financial hysteria grips the nation. No one can speak of anything but the price of property - it is impossible not to make money. Developers gorge on massive loans.

Bankers, egged on by politicians, trample over each other in the stampede to lend more and more. Millionaires are created every day as the stock market soars and Ireland audaciously becomes one of the world's wealthiest nations. But at the heart of this unholy multi-billion euro alliance between developers, politicians and bankers lies a hideous truth: the whole empire is built on sand.

Two men face each other over the dark divide. One, Albert Barr, a developer, has everything to lose; the other, Lee Carew, a struggling journalist, suddenly realises that he has stumbled upon the story of a lifetime. And for the bankers, the developers and Ireland's Celtic Tiger, time is rapidly running out.

With devastating accuracy and savage humour, Peter Cunningham's novel tells the story of the final year of the Celtic Tiger as it has never been told before.