This novel is based upon the experiences and dealings of Arnold Bennett's friend Lord Beaverbrook during the First World War. Sam Raingo seemingly has it all; money, a wife, a mistress and the good life. However, his health is failing and he is becoming bored. He develops a need to achieve something more and the ambtion is fulfilled, along with the gaining of a peerage, when the Government asks him to head up a propaganda department with the aim of keeping up civilian morale during the conflict. Bennett manages to take the reader deeply into Raingo's mind in describing the inevitable anxieties and attempted reconciliation of public and private emotions and stances. At the same time, a gripping story unfolds as would be expected from a semi-biographical work of his brilliant and controversial subject.