It is December 1979. Kathleen’s son Sean has been convicted of a crime on behalf of the IRA and sent to Long Kesh prison – newly renamed the Maze. John Dunn has just taken up a job as a prison guard after leaving the army. Both will be shocked at what they find. Both will try to do the right thing, and fail. Neither will ever be the same again. Louise Dean’s sensational new novel deals with one of the most explosive and morally complex incidents in recent British history. `This human season’ is a powerful, confronting, humane, and blackly funny examination of the lives of ordinary people when placed in the vice of history.