Rescue Man opens on the eve of the Second World War.With uncertainty in the air as the world seems on the brink of disaster, Liverpool is a city tense in anticipation of the coming conflict.Tom Baines is struggling to finish a book chronicling the architecture of his beloved Liverpool.Orphaned as a child and now approaching forty with no prospect of a family of his own, Baines is a man emotionally adrift.Unable to commit to anything, either personal or professional, he is left looking in at life from the outside. Then old university tutor passes on information about the diary of a Victorian architect and sends Baines to a photographer who will help him with his book.Both introductions will change Baines's life.