London in the early 1990s; supposedly the New Age 'Caring Nineties'. But the streets, it turns out, are not paved with gold, but covered with the homeless living in leeping-bags and cardboard boxes, and often littered with a far more dangerous form of flotsam. For Angel, the city divides into several layers of underworlds and sub-cultures: callous crime and corruption, the growing drug culture, the seedier side of the gay scene, the young and homeless. There is also a more literal underworld where the role-playing game of Dungeons and Dragons can shift from fantasy to real violence at the flick of a wizard's wand ... But most serious of all is that Angel is down on his luck and flat broke. The situation is critical. So critical, he might even have to get a job...