This intensely moving novel puts the local community of Belfast''s beautiful, well-loved Shaw''s Bridge area on the literary map. Framed in the modern day, through the intriguing discoveries of an accountant, it reveals a poignant picture of young men and women of all c lasses going off to the Great War: in a story with no winners - only survivors. To the people of Shaw''s Bridge, every sense was laid bare. It''s a journey of love, loyalty, bravery, and redemption, laced with Belfast humour. Seamlessly blending fact and fiction, the author doesn''t shy away from the brutality of the battlefields of Northern France. A hundred years on, those who experienced dark days have disappeared like mist over the River Lagan. yet unexpectedly they return, like ghosts, to tell the tale of their fate. Belfast author Kerry Whe lan grew up along the Lagan and drew his novel from his earliest surroundings. A former Open Learning lecturer at Queens, he still lives locally. His understanding of the History and Politics of Belfast, the First World War, and the 36th Ulster Division at the Somme inspired and nurtured the backdrop and fully dimensioned characters, who stay in your thoughts long after the last page is turned.This is his uniquely clear, serene and universal vision of humanity faced with an irrevocable challenge. The first novel in the forthcoming ''Ballydrain Trilogy'' about the Shaw s Bridge community throughout the troubled times of Belfast''s l ast one hundred years.