Three people in three countries in three different eras. Ursule in 1864 lives the life of a kitchen skivvy in Paris. Dexter in 1965 is an American GI in Vietnam. Dante in 2015 is a Catholic priest in Palermo, Sicily. For Ursule the Prussians are closing in. For Dexter it`s the Vietcong. For Dante it is the mafia. How can they escape but, more than that, how can misery become rapture? In contemporary Britain a fourth person holds all the strings in his hands as he rises silently & gracefully above the earth. In this tour de force of imagination Stuart Campbell follows the brilliant John Mc Pake & the Sea Beggars with a tale that defies time & gravity & takes the reader to a place few have ever been & fewer still come back from.