Tommy Johnson narrates the trip to Berlin via Amsterdam, while back in London, pensioner Bill Farrell remembers a similar route he took as a soldier during the Second World War, dealing with some horrific memories and a tragic killing in the process.

Directed by Nick Love, it featured Danny Dyer as Tommy Johnson, while Dudley Sutton played Bill Farrell.

The novel draws on the Second World War and its aftermath, while considering the relationship between Britain and the EU, a subject King focuses on in The Liberal Politics of Adolf Hitler (2016).

[3] In his review for the Morning Star, Chris Searle wrote: "The words of Wilfred Owen come pounding through the prose: 'I was the enemy you killed, my friend.'

The literature is in the sordid truth and crude, raucous, mob-like poetry of King's lifesaving and lifewasting that bursts from his pages, confronting the reader with questions of culture, nationalism, violence and class that are not easily put aside."