Airside, like many of Priest's work, is a book of subtle charm. It presents itself and is advertised as one thing, but, as the reader will quickly discover, it is about something else entirely. For what is, presumably, his final novel it is markedly autobiographical. Our hero is very much a stand in for Priest himself and the narration has an odd relation with the narrative. It is at once embedded in the present but distant too. This sense of eerie detachment pervades both the narrative, central mystery and the hero themselves. Many are likely to be baffled by this one, but it's a book to return to. The novel is chiefly concerned with what life is like in the airside, in transition and how so much of it is lived like that today.