The Rescue Man by Anthony Quinn

Historian Tom Baines has been commissioned to write a book on Liverpool's architecture: the Second World War is under way and he's keen to preserve the structures, at least in print, before the Luftwaffe destroys them. Quinn switches between Baines's story – he finds himself pressed into service as a "rescue man", pulling people from the rubble – and that of Peter Eames, an 1860s architect, who is brought to life through journal extracts. The sense of time and place in these intertwined stories is evidence of precise research and the narrative is elegantly constructed. The novel was deservedly shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott prize for new fiction.