When Noel Bostock – aged ten, no family – is evacuated from London to escape the  Blitz, he ends up living  in St Albans with Vera Sedge – thirty-six and drowning in debts and dependents.   Always desperate for money, she’s  unscrupulous about how she gets it.

Noel is mourning  his godmother  Mattie, a former suffragette.  Brought up to share her disdain for authority and eclectic approach to education, he has  little in common with other children and even less with Vee, who hurtles from one self-made crisis to the next.  The war has thrown up new opportunities  for making money but what Vee needs (and what she’s never had) is a cool head and the ability to make a plan.

On her own, she’s a disaster. With Noel, she’s a team.

Together they cook up an idea.  Criss-crossing the bombed suburbs of London, Vee starts to make a profit  and Noel begins to regain his interest in life.

But there are plenty of other people making money out of the war and some of them are dangerous.

Noel may have been moved to safety, but he isn’t actually safe at all…