In Light of What We Know by Zia Haider Rahman

This book tells the story of Zafar, an enigmatic British-Bangladeshi who has had a far reaching life.  He was born in Bangladesh, educated in the United States and the United Kingdom, and been a Wall Street banker, and potentially more. One day in the light of the financial collapse of 2008, he turns up at the London home of an old friend. As we learn, there have been rumors that about Zafar's life that are far more romantic than the story he relays--he is not an international man of mystery.  Instead he is world weary and seeking a sort of personal peace.

Zafar and the narrator studied mathematics at Oxford, and the text is infused with theorem's and concepts, some of which require graphics in addition to footnotes (something you don't often see in a work of fiction.  The novel is very optimistic about mathematics' ability to an answer the world’s crises. But the world cannot forever be held at bay, and the book is especially preoccupied with the way class hierarchies enervate British society in a modern society. Appropriately enough, the two protagonists—the Pakistani elite and the Bangladeshi self-made man—are both visible outsiders to   upper class society. As the novel reveals gradually, even after they have succeeded in school and jobs, there are still subtle ways they can be reminded they don’t belong there.  The book is far more pleasant than the message it conveys and is highly recommended.