Some people have the knack of being able to make the most of any hand that life deals them. As the brown-skinned boy of white parents, who was abandoned to the care of relatives in London after the death of his mum, Michael Stevens isn't one of them. His experiences have left him with a resentful chip on his shoulder and a tendency to make the wrong call. He has a lot to learn, but it isn't easy having to learn it on his own and as he goes along. He has a dad but his father, Alan Stevens, is living in Southend with a barmaid called Rita. After they give a home with them to Grace, Alan's prodigal daughter and someone with enough skeletons in her cupboard to fill a small cemetery, a lonely Michael clings to his friendship with a boy named Brian Feldman. Unbeknown to him, their friendship is a ticking timebomb under what's left of the house of Stevens, and it isn't the only piece of unexploded, buried ordnance. Grace's past is another and it is about to catch up with her because as her dad told her once, 'spilt blood never sleeps.'