First published 1981
Belfast burns around Silver as sectarian violence tears through the city's neighborhoods. The protagonist navigates streets where every corner holds potential danger and loyalties shift like smoke. Bombs explode without warning. Neighbors become enemies overnight. Silver must choose sides in a conflict where neutrality means death and wrong choices destroy families. The undeclared war transforms ordinary people into casualties or combatants. Silver watches his city fracture along invisible lines that everyone understands but no one discusses openly. Friends disappear. Businesses close. Children learn to recognize the sound of gunfire before they can read. Leitch captures how political violence invades private lives and forces impossible decisions. Silver's story reveals how survival in Belfast requires constant calculation of risk and relationship. The novel explores what happens to human connection when terror becomes routine and trust becomes luxury.
Genres: fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, 21st-century
Vibes: dark, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, survival
Setting: Belfast
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
1 pages · Hardcover · Secker & Warburg
Content warnings: violence