John Cole is one of the most loved of all British TV personalities, as the best-selling sales in hardback and paperback of his autobiography proved. It has long been his ambition to write fiction - this is the result. It is the story of Alan Houston, a journalist whose life - and marriage - is wrecked by the sectarian conflict that flared anew in the northern Ireland of the 1970s. Flattered into becoming an adviser to the British government in Northern Ireland, he lets the role go to his head. Absorbed by his new job, he neglects his wife, and puts his sons at risk as he courts the innermost circles of the IRA.