Arthur isn't interested in politics - but politics is interested in him.
When his mother shows him gruesome newspaper photos of disinterred nuns and urges him to do his duty, he doesn't have a clue what that might be. But he will soon realise when he finds himself in the jaws of the Spanish Civil War. So starts a life of adventure and misadventure, of steps and missteps, of courage and cowardice, of physical and moral peril.
Then he meets Edith, an enigmatic young woman who changes everything. Inspired by his new comrade to resist the Nazi occupation in Belgium, Arthur's life will continue to take unexpected turns, taking him from the horrors of Buchenwald to the depths of the Amazon.
But nothing is simple. Moral and other pitfalls abound. There's no escaping politics, especially when a coup brings a military junta to power. And there's no escaping Edith and her tireless activism.
This is the story of an unlikely hero living through tumultuous times of political upheaval in the twentieth century and the hardships he must endure to survive.