Who'd have guessed? To look at him, back then, when he was young, and friendly, sinless even, who'd have seen it? Yet it was always there. Deep, in his marrow, something stirred. Something primal. A wolf's hunger bayed. So begins the story of Johnnie Lupo – just ten when a thirst for wealth takes hold. 'A Million Quid' becomes his passion and he pursues it – recklessly at first, then brutally. Johnnie's brother Beppe is also driven by hunger, for darker lusts. In the middle is a bright and courageous twelve-year-old teetering between childhood and adolescence. Isabelle Samuelson is as delightful as she is remarkable – battling transitional changes, a heavy weight of ambition, gender and family issues, dirty tricks, and shocking news. All these troubles collide on the day of the Scholarship Exam – a challenge vital to her burning aspiration. At precisely eleven past eleven on the eleventh of the eleventh, 1961, the interwoven worlds of Johnnie and Isabelle are spinning out of control. What happens next puts the real worth of Johnnie's power and money in perspective.