In this starkly humorous novel, set in post World-War 2 England, we experience the realities of life on the sprawling, sooty streets of Yorkshire. Martin Rooney is a young man, scarred by a childhood of bombings, black-outs and bad news followed by three years of traumatic service in R.A.F. Bomber Command, only to find equally bleak prospects for post-war employment. He signs on as an officer of the Crown and enters a world that he had never imagined,...