It tells the story both of adherents to the British Union of Fascists and of a young man who turns his back on them to fight against the Spanish Fascists.
Some of the characters have a sympathetic enough reason for supporting Mosley: there is the mother who wanted to save her son from war and calculated that Mosley was the best chance to do so. However, the book also charts the disillusionment of the loyal Fascists and the growing realisation of the consequences of the increasingly racist policies of Mosley's "New Party".
It is a revelation to hear Fascist ideology not couched in foreign accents but in upper-class and even aristocratic British ones. The thuggery of the Blackshirts is not emphasised but rather the reasons for the attraction of Fascism - the theory that a corporate state would bring an end to class conflict.
The narrative follows the characters into the Second World War. Suddenly the Nazi bombs weren't falling on Spanish Reds but on British homes. It brought about a different perspective.
The background to the story is factual but the characters are fictitious. It is a book which brings history alive.
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