In 2007, during the months before Flynn's daughter is born, his growing outrage and obsession with torture - exacerbated by the Abu Ghraib photos - leads him to Istanbul to meet some of the Iraqi men depicted in the photographs. Haunted by a history of addiction, a relationship with an unsteady father and a longing to connect with his mother who committed suicide, this memoir artfully interweaves passages from Flynn's childhood, his romantic relationships with women and his questioning of terror, torture and political crimes - unimaginable horrors, but part of humanity all the same.

The time bomb of the title becomes a vehicle for exploring the fears and joys of becoming a father. Here is a dazzling, inventive memoir of profound self-discovery - of being lost and found, of painful family memories and losses, and of the compulsion to run from love, but the ability to embrace it.