'Terrific, sharp, punchy, drenched in experience and action. It feels like a war story - and that is absolutely right.' Tony Parsons

Relentlessly frank and honest, this is the true story of a London firefighter's gruelling 25-year career.

Clifford Thompson recounts his scintillating first-hand experiences of the 1988 Clapham train crash, the 1993 bombing of New York's World Trade Centre, and the aftermath of the Kings Cross fire. He describes the trauma that firefighters deal with every day.

Despite facing many horrific situations and experiencing major disasters, it is one memory that haunts him to this day: a three-year-old boy dying caught up in a house fire just days before Christmas.