The Burn Estate is doomed.

Bulldozers are ready to obliterate its 60 years of life. 60 years of stories.

Vincent Barr is part of every story. Legendary, terrifying, he stands at the intersection of three generations of sprawling council estate marooned on the outskirts of Ironopolis, Middlesborough’s nickname during its long-gone industrial heyday.

There is nothing Vincent hasn’t been mixed up in: boyhood pranks gone horrifyingly wrong. Exploding WWII bombs. Acid rave’s comeups and brutal comedowns. The sinister underbelly of the greyhound racing industry. Ancient, child-drowning Tees River witches hell-bent on havoc. Cult artists and hungover hairdressers. And, finally, his own son Alan – a lifelong misfit with a limp – who is closing in on their family’s darkest secret of all…