Molly, the wife of a publisher, sinks swiftly and unexpectedly into madness and death. Two of her ex-lovers meet at her funeral. One is a famous composer working on his chef d'oeuvre, the other is an editor who has just realized he'll do anything to increase circulation at his newspaper. The two of them, horrified by what has happened, swear that they will help each other die if such a fate ever befalls them. Then each is faced with a moral crisis--a situation that involves yet another of Molly's old flames. In the course of the plot, their true natures are revealed, and the dinouement, set in Amsterdam, is both farcical and fitting. McEwan's seventh novel was the winner of the Booker Prize in 1998.