The protagonist, Jake Hersh, first appeared in Richler's fourth novel, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, as a schoolmate of the title character.

Now, almost twenty years later, Hersh is a moderately successful film director, married with three children, who has become embroiled in a sordid sex scandal.

With his world crumbling around him, Jake continues to be obsessed with the mystery of his long-lost cousin and idol Joey, an adventurer, Nazi-hunter and Spanish Civil War veteran.

This novel has been translated into Spanish, by Manuel Bartolomé López, from the Weidenfeld and Nicolson edition, as El jinete de san Urbano (Barcelona/Buenos Aires/Mexico City: Best Sellers Grijalbo, 1975, 1st edition in Spanish).

The 2007 tv series St. Urbain's Horseman, directed by Peter Moss, is based on the novel.