It was one of the most bizarre episodes in the history of the Troubles
in Northern Ireland: the construction, during the war's most savage
phase, of a factory in West Belfast to make a luxury sports car with
gull-wing doors. Huge subsidies were provided by the British government.
The first car rolled off the line during the appalling hunger strikes of
1981. The prime mover and central character of this intelligent, witty
and moving novel was John DeLorean, brilliant engineer, charismatic
entrepreneur and world-class conman. He comes to energetic, seductive
life through the eyes of his fixer in Belfast, a traumatized Vietnam
veteran, and of a woman who takes a job in the factory against the
wishes of her husband. Each of them has secrets and desires they dare
not share with anyone they know.