Mickey Donnelly is growing up painfully in the Catholic Ardoyne area of Belfast. The Protestant Shankhill, just at the end of his road, is barricaded off to prevent the inhabitants of each side killing each other. “The Shankhill Butchers live there. They don’t sell meat, they chop up Catholics.”  Patrols of heavily armed British soldiers regularly pass Mickey’s house, while helicopters prowl and spy overhead. A soldier is killed outside a sweet shop as Mickey comes out with his “10p mix”. This is Mickey’s Bildungsroman as he prepares himself for the huge and scary step ahead of him, during the summer holidays between leaving primary school and starting secondary school, against a background of bombs, shootings, hidden guns, a strange man asle