By the Costa Award-winning author of PURE, a profound and tender tale of guilt, trust and a father's yearning to atone, which gives voice to those little heard in the literature of the Troubles. An innocent-looking letter drops onto the doormat in Stephen Rose's Somerset home like an unexploded bomb. It is a summons to an enquiry in Belfast, inviting him to give evidence about an event during the Troubles - one he has long walled off in his mind and of which his daughter is unaware. An ex-soldier and recovering alcoholic, Stephen has just begun to form a fragile bond with Maggie, the grown-up daughter he barely knows. For two years, he has worked hard to earn her trust. How can he agree to testify and risk losing her now? Instead, he decides to write her an account of his life; an explanation, a defence, a confession, a love letter. Also a means of thinking aloud, of buying time. Until the moment comes when he can no longer avoid going into what happened in Belfast that summer of 1982.

The consequences are shattering, yet ultimately liberating - the only way back from the underworld is up.