1983. The City of London. And Archie’s just grabbed life by the ball…

PG Davies’s debut novel is a cutting satire, which plunges into the 1980s City of London where financial deregulation changes stockbroking forever.

We follow rugby player, Archie Henderson, in the last week of school who is desperate to leave a torrid home life for university. A last-minute expulsion for defending a cross-dressing Vinnie Pritchard is finally overcome and Archie is spat out into the big wide world. A Summer’s work experience in New Orleans and travels across the USA to Hollywood expose a new world to Archie.

Finishing university Archie enters the stock market – a world that thrums with the volatile energy of the dealing room and a relationships-based business full of the gossip and rumour. His entry into The City opens a variety of doors for him where the people he meets are central to the dramatic denouement of the book.

Rich with humour and a large caste of unforgettable characters, The Wood and The Trees has echoes of Evelyn Waugh, William Boyd and Alan Hollinghurst in its witty portraiture of 1980s London.