AFTER Kevin Myers graduated from university in 1969, a chance job application led to him becoming a journalist in Belfast, reporting on the Troubles.

Quickly absorbed into the local community, he mixed with both Protestant and Catholic paramilitary forces alike and often knew the killers and those killed.

His personal account of the moral and political irony of life on the streets of a society on the brink of civil war, with the addition of alcohol and sexual encounters, is dark but written with wit and honesty.

You get a real feel of the drama, tension and fear of Belfast in the 1970s, where watching the door really was critical.