If one cannot live alone, without attachment, under whose control ought responsibility for one’s life be shared? A child recruit, IRA sniper Eoin is still a teenager when he decides to escape, first to England then on to Germany and the inevitable face-off with his pursuers.

In attempting to circumference his past from a Cambodian retirement home for mercenaries the protagonist recalls scenes from a final, crippling mission to Africa, and traces a pivotal moment when a young fugitive seeking an ordinary life lapses into violence more extreme than he or his pursuers ever imagined.

If it appears possible for him to reconcile the fragments of his life and navigate the errors of the past before, like the man next to him, his mind goes, then My is the catalyst for this hope. A care worker, My is the only other with whom he feels emotional attachment. When she abruptly disappears he must find the will to complete his work alone, find another source of support or give up entirely— a return to a state he seems to have always been prepared for.