Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular former BBC radio producer, and Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer, and television personality, are old school friends. Despite a prickly relationship and very different lives, they've never lost touch with each other, or with their former teacher, Libor Sevcik. Dining together one night at Sevcik's apartment—the two Jewish widowers and the unmarried Gentile, Treslove—the men share a sweetly painful evening, reminiscing on a time before they had loved and lost, before they had prized anything greatly enough to fear the loss of it. But as Treslove makes his way home, he is attacked and mugged outside a violin dealer's window. Treslove is convinced the crime was a misdirected act of anti-Semitism, and in its aftermath, his whole sense of self will ineluctably change.

The second book in the Hogarth Shakespeare series heralds the full-on 2016 anniversary celebration of Shakespeare: Man Booker Prize winner and our great chronicler of Jewish life retells the powerful, controversial story of Shylock. In The Merchant of Venice , the merchant Antonio borrows from the Jewish moneylender Shylock, whom he openly despises, to help fund his friend Bassanio's wooing of the beautiful, prized Portia. Shylock agrees--but on the condition that Antonio promise in return a pound of flesh should he be unable to repay the debt. When Antonio's ships are lost at sea and it becomes clear he cannot, the case goes to court: Antonio must honour his promise--until an unknown lawyer (Portia herself, dressed as a man) arrives and brilliantly picks the case apart. Jacobson takes the great tale of vengeance and cruelty and propels it through space and time to the shiny modern world of Cheshire's Golden Triangle, where we meet a funny, love-driven, vindictive cast of characters very much from our world, confronting Shakespeare's timelessly urgent questions in the 21st century.