Moving back through the 194Os, through air raids, blacked.out streets, illicit partying, and sexual adventure, to end with its beginning in 1941, Sarah Waters's new novel tells the story of four Londoners-three women and a young man with a past-whose lives, and those of their friends and lovers, connect in tragedy,stunning surprise, and exquisffe turns, only to change irreversibly in the shadow of a grand historical event.