The Children Act could hardly be more attuned to the temper of the times, appearing just as our newspapers are full of a story about parents absconding to Spain with their critically ill child. The incident makes us wonder who should have ultimate responsibility for a sick minor: his parents, his doctors, the law?

Ian McEwan’s short novel examines these very questions and, like the family currently in the headlines, his patient is a Jehovah’s Witness.