During the heatwave of 1975, Maggie, thirteen, goes to live with her grandfather, Pop, in Sutton Coldfield. Pop's mission is to know everything: the annual Fox and Dogs pub quiz is looming. Maggie doesn't know everything, but she does know about the great comedians - Ken Dodd, Tommy Cooper, Eric and Ernie - about country music, Shirley Bassie, and about how her mother died.

Pop sings with the poetry of the suburbs and aches with the poignancy of adolescence. Kitty Aldridge has a wonderfully distinctive voice and a deliciously sharp eye for the extraordinariness of ordinary lives.