There's something not quite right about Harry Ambrose. As winter approaches on a dreary London night in 1963, a mysterious man tells his strange story. According to his colleagues, for the past eight years Harry has lived a boring, predictable life dedicated to the library department of a learned scientific society. But there's another Harry, one with shocking credentials. It's his past, filled with sins and blunders, that has crushed his hope of redemption. He suffers serious psychological damage inextricably linked to his former life. Will Harry survive this tumultuous year in London? Who's following him, and why? Will he find escape in the affection of a young lady? Throughout Harry's story, he struggles to understand and resolve his destructive personal shortcomings, the intimacy of death, an overriding sense of hopelessness and corruption. Like a whirligig - a child's spinning toy - will time resurrect to attain revenge?