Set in Belfast during the Second World War, it tells the story of 17-year-old Gavin Burke who, admitting "war was freedom, freedom from futures", defies his nationalist and Catholic family by volunteering as an air raid warden with the largely Protestant ARP.

[1] The novel follows Gavin's journey as he realises that there are those on the other side of the city's bitter communal division whose friendships offer a wider horizon.

Based in part on Moore's own wartime experiences,[2][3] he described it as the most autobiographical of his novels.

[2] Moore left Belfast in 1943 to join the British Ministry of War Transport and worked himself for a period with the ARP in London.

The book is dedicated, as were all of Moore's subsequent novels, to his partner Jean,[4] who became his second wife two years after its publication.