C

C opens with the birth of its subject, Serge Carrefax, and the beginnings of wireless radio. As Serge is brought into the world, caul-shrouded, to a mother insensible with chloroform, his father is erecting complex networks intended to boost his ability to send messages across the airwaves.
It is a confluence that will have a profound effect on Serge, his obsession with its codes and possibilities taking him from the classroom to the clear skies above the trenches of the First World War, from the indignities of a prisoner-of-war camp to the drug-riddled streets of London – and ultimately to where ancient meets modern in Twenties Egypt.