This story collection carries us like an outgoing tide, on a wave retreating from the underworld of 21st century London to a Dublin hinterland in the 1970's and beyond, to the time of coalmen, tenements, and bicycles. "They're all here, the charmers, the snakes, the innocent, the complaisant, the guilt-ridden and the guilty, the Brothers, the whores, the poor and the young, the invulnerable, the jailed and the dead, the green and the truant, the music box and the p.a, the skaters, the crooners, and the pink neon sign that blinks all night, saying keys, keys, keys..."