Lobster fisherman David decides to seek his fortune in London where he finds lodging in a boarding house for girls.

After his wife leaves him, Paul seeks solace at a sophisticated health spa run by a pair of sinister siblings. Strangely attracted by the scent of a vine that grows on the old ice house in the spa's grounds, Paul is drawn ever deeper into a horrifying mystery.

Former Irish Republican Army member Niall Hennessy lives in Belfast, Ireland, with his wife and daughter amid the ongoing Irish-British conflict. Though he still knows people in the IRA, including fugitive leader Tobin, Niall has given up his violent ways. One day his family is caught in a chaotic street shootout and killed by British forces. Overwhelmed with rage and hunted by a Scotland Yard inspector, Niall heads to London to exact his deadly revenge.

"I wish I could write ... about what Spain was like - a real cause. Not just Cornford, Hemingway and Orwell, but the ordinary blokes who went." A confused industrial dispute at a London hospital triggers off in trade unionist George Harley 's mind memories of his days fighting in the Spanish Civil War, when the issues seemed so much clearer.