Autumn 1940. London is being firebombed, unable to strike back as the Luftwaffe drones overhead. Jack Finlay, a young man notorious for his ability to fight fires, is given the task of preventing five buildings vital to Britain's war effort from being engulfed by the flames.But resources are scarce and the mood is bleak, and Finlay himself suspicious about the real motive for his mission. And then he falls in love with a woman as unorthodox as he is: a wartime liaison as improbable as it is intense, dangerous because it makes him as vulnerable as the flames and plots twist around him.