The plot of the novel depends on a huge helping of coincidence, starting with a chance encounter between Werner Zilch and Rebecca Lynch in a New York restaurant in 1969. From the moment he sees Rebecca, Werner becomes convinced she is the woman for him, christening her ‘the love of my life’ (TLOML) and frequently referring to her by that moniker or as ‘my beauty’. They embark on an affair which sees them hanging out in trendy bars and restaurants, listening to Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa and Nina Simone perform on stage, and hobnobbing with Andy Warhol at his studio, The Factory. ‘At the Electric Circus, evening gowns mingled with flowery sundresses, men with slick-backed hair talked with guys covered in tattoos, and a man dressed as a Roman emperor could come on to a model in a sequinned minidress.’

The relationship between Werner and Rebecca is a torrid affair and at one point Rebecca disappears from Werner’s life after a particularly uncomfortable meeting with her family. He professes himself bereft although he manages to find consolation elsewhere before long.

Despite the tragic circumstances of his birth, I didn’t find Werner a particularly likeable character. He is brash, arrogant and self-obsessed, seemingly motivated by a combination of ambition and lust, and completely convinced he is irresistible to women. The fact he was adopted and knows little about his birth parents didn’t seem to me to entirely excuse his behaviour and his attitude towards women. His sister, Lauren, and best friend and business partner, Marcus, do their best to control Werner’s worst excesses with, it has to be said, limited success.

Alternating between the story of Werner’s relationship with Rebecca are chapters set in Germany during World War 2 in which we learn about Werner’s birth and his early life in the care of Magda, the sister of his birth mother. Through her harrowing story the reader witnesses the horrors of the Nazi regime. I thought these sections of the book were much more compelling and powerful than Werner’s story in the later timeline.

The two storylines are written in very different styles and for a lot of the time they felt like two separate books stapled together only in the final few chapters. The point at which the storylines come together introduces the element of mystery referred to in the book description but again this relies on a generous amount of coincidence. I found myself agreeing with Werner when he observes, ‘It’s impossible that out of all four billion people who live on this planet we managed to meet…’.

The Last of Our Kind had many elements I admired but overall I was left a little disappointed. In this respect I seem to be out of step with critical opinion as the book won the Académie Francaise Grand Prix du Roman 2016, one of the most prestigious literary awards in France.