The Rescue Man

Summary

Rescue Man opens on the eve of the Second World War. With uncertainty in the air as the world seems on the brink of disaster, Liverpool is a city tense in anticipation of the coming conflict. Tom Baines is struggling to finish a book chronicling the architecture of his beloved Liverpool. Orphaned as a child and now approaching forty with no prospect of a family of his own, Baines is a man emotionally adrift. Unable to commit to anything, either personal or professional, he is left looking in at life from the outside. Then old university tutor passes on information about the diary of a Victorian architect and sends Baines to a photographer who will help him with his book. Both introductions will change Baines' life. The diary is that of Peter Eames, Victorian visionary and self-proclaimed genius.The photographers are Richard and Bella Tanqueray - a couple with whom Baines forms an immediate bond. The outbreak of war brings a new sense of purpose and unexpected relationships. Baines joins the Rescue Men - retrieving the wounded from bombed buildings. The Blitz is a relentless bombardment trailing devastation and loss in its wake. Yet in wartime ordinary rules are suspended, risks taken and Baines finds himself caught up in a love affair that is as heady and all-consuming as it is transgressive. With writing that is both immediate and deeply steeped in its time, Anthony Quinn recreates wartime Liverpool with the same emotional intensity and fidelity with which he renders the city of Eames' Victorian diaries. Quinn is a writer whose facility for language will carry you through the streets of 'the Venice of the North' in a powerful, unforgettable story of love found and lost.