Back in London from abroad, Bill English has it all - smart flat with a river view, flash car and, of course, the beautiful Anna. But he was born and brought up in these parts and everything's changed. Anna asks: 'Where are the ghosts Bill?'

RUC detective Simon Gabby is consumed by guilt after he fails to act decisively in a moment of terror. As the pressure on him builds, Gabby gradually loses control of his life

The McAuleys are local celebrities and Eileen Hughes, a young shop assistant, is flattered to be taken under their wing. Then she accepts their invitation to join them for a week's holiday in London ...

When Danny, 'one of Maggie's wandering minstrels', visits a seaside horror museum, he is rather disappointed. 'It's all about victims. Now people are interested in who done it, not who it got done to ...' So begins a process of disintegration which culminates in a new type of exhibit, 'an attraction' for the modern age.

Ireland's bloody 1916 Easter Uprising, the suffragette movement in England, a Zeppelin raid, and a meeting with a rising young British cabinet member named Winston Churchill become vivid vignettes in Indy's life. So too do his brief but impassioned romances with the sister of a clandestine Irish rebel, and with an English suffragette for whom the vote comes before love.