Three Brothers follows the lives and fortunes of Harry, Daniel and Sam Hanway, a trio of brothers born on the same day in the middle of last century, in a grim council estate in Camden. After their mother inexplicably abandons the family, each boy is forced to make his own way in the world. From the bustling cut-throat world of Fleet street, hallowed London publishing offices, and the wealth and comfort of Chelsea, to the smoky shadowy streets of Limehouse and Hackney, this is a trip around the city, down its streets, riding on the tubes, at a very particular moment of history, and unusually for Ackroyd's fiction, all within living memory. London is the backdrop and the connecting fabric of these three lives, reinforcing Ackroyd's grand theme that history and the city both makes and creates us, surrounds and engulfs us.