Susan Hooper is private secretary to bestselling author Vivian Proudfoot. Well-spoken & well-read she soon learns how to hold her own with Londons literary sophisticates. But the attentions of Mercer Hughes a handsome agent with a notorious reputation & a shady past are more than a dockers daughter can cope with & she finds herself falling reluctantly in love. She is soon cut off from her father & at loggerheads with her idealistic brother Ronnie & his gadabout wife Breda. Even her old friend newspaperman Danny Cahill is shocked at the circles in which Susan finds herself where pimps & gangsters rub shoulders with wealthy fascist sympathisers in support of the war in Spain. As the threat of world war grows Susan is torn between loyalty to her family & a lover who will not let her go. But when the time comes to choose she finds a solution that surprises everyone.