Young Louis Brennan has a way with words. This talent catches the eye of his dynamic and ambitious boss, Jack Shildrick, editor in chief of a local newspaper in the north of England. Before long they both make their way up in the world of journalism and down to the Beatles-besotted, miniskirted London of 1966, Louis as a writer for the prestigious and trend-setting color magazine of the Sunday Dispatch and Shildrick as the editor of its news section. Louis finds himself increasingly torn between his desire for acceptance by his talented but greedy and oversexed magazine colleagues and his admiration for Jack Shildrick, who, he discovers, is bent on ending the magazine's cherished autonomy. Office politics boil over with the arrival of Fran Dyson, a knockout blond "bird," who leads Louis on, steals his copy, and plays hob with his heart as she climbs toward the top.As Louis Brennan comes to terms with his gift for writing and with one private or public shock after another, Philip Norman conjures up swinging London in vibrant detail. And he leads his hero, and the reader, to startling insights about journalism and to a fresh appreciation of the human comedy in which we all play a part. Read Less