The title refers to victims of human trafficking as well as what Scruton describes as "the disappearance from our society of the old ideas of authority, the old religion, the old sense of belonging".

[1] Scruton based the novel on his experiences from the Ray Honeyford affair in 1984, which he combined with details from the case of the Oxford sex gang.

Bindel wrote that Scruton "will no doubt be accused of Islamophobia and racism by those that can only hear about multiculturalism as a force for good."

Bindel wrote that the novel was not without faults: "I regularly had to check back to when a person was first introduced, to remind myself of their place in the scheme of things.

But the author describes the clash of cultures, in this case of mainly Afghan migrants living in Britain, rather brilliantly.