Francis Spufford's novel opens in the summer of 1939, as war tensions mount over London. Iris Hawkins, a sharp-witted financial secretary, has a chance encounter with Geoff, an engineer working on the new technology of television. What begins as a night of abandon draws Iris into something far stranger: a reality where time bends, spirits answer summons, and history itself hangs by a thread. When the Blitz begins, Iris finds herself defending London from more than German bombs. A fascist fanatic is traveling through time with a gun, determined to alter history's course, and only Iris stands in her way. Spufford, acclaimed for historical novels like 'Golden Hill' and 'Cahokia Jazz,' here ventures into literary fantasy while maintaining his characteristic attention to period detail and moral seriousness. The wartime setting, when death fell randomly from above each night and women held the home front together, provides perfect conditions for a story about ordinary courage against extraordinary evil. The novel weaves together the terrors of the Blitz, early television technology, and fantastical elements into a meditation on ambition, love, and resistance to tyranny. Spufford writes with both thriller momentum and genuine depth about what it means to fight for the future.