This satiric literary novel is a fast-paced coming-of-age tale in a picaresque vein, set for the most part in the England of 1645, during the height of the English Civil War. The discovery of a sex crime-and a case of sexual "deviance"-brings two green youths into a collision course with the law, culminating in outlawry. Their attempt to extricate themselves backfires, setting in motion a series of comic yet dark adventures through a topsy-turvy world of legal corruption, organized crime, religious fanaticism, and war. See them shed their innocence-painfully.