Set in Antrim during The Troubles in Northern Ireland in the 1980s, the book tells the take of two eleven year old children, May-Belle Mulholland and Pearse Furlong.

[1][2][4] Pearce is the son of a bullying Royal Ulster Constabulary officer, and May-Belle's father is regularly arrested and jailed, leaving her under the care of her violent mother.

[1] The children, portrayed as victims rather than villains, begin to torment and torture insects, graduating to small animals, influenced by the selfish acts of their parents.

[2] Towards the end of the book Pearse Furlong's mother and grandmother are killed by a car bomb that was planted to target his father.

[4] James Smart writing in The Guardian describes the book as a "passionate critique of a society that has lost its soul.