Set against the background of a hairdressing salon with the unlikely pairing of Malcolm, ageing, homosexual and coming to terms with the onset of Alzheimer's in his partner, and Alison, a naive young apprentice whose world is shattered when a gay colleague is killed by neo-nazi thugs. The exploration of pain, loss and the inhumanity of the holocaust is at times, almost unbearable, but amazingly there are also moments of humour and uplift that made this a mesmeric read for me.