It’s early-eighties London and Micky Targett has a problem – everyone is making it big except him. Try as he might, he can’t catch a break. It’s a desperate situation, but the semi-wide Micky has a solution.

A chance encounter launches him from the tedium of a dead-end job, into the immoral and illegal world of European ‘free-enterprise.’ Unimagined riches are finally his, and when the rocket-fueled pace of his life proves too much for his beloved Julie, there is line of candidates ready and willing to take her place.

This is an outstanding debut novel. DC Taplin is the sort of author one gets excited to have found and then look forward to everything else they write. The authorial voice of the first person narrative is written with a raw and compelling energy. I have so much empathy for Micky Target!
The plot takes one screaming along the 1980s motorway of drug culture, organized crime and Maggie's boom and bust economy.
There are moments of graphic violence but also it's a caper quite on a par with The Italian Job. Self-love, self-doubt, self-recrimination - all part of the jigsaw of life. Read it: we all have a lesson to learn.

Nostalgic setting which will appeal to those who lived through the eighties or who have an interest in the era. Sometimes dark, this thriller is fast paced and full of action.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC.
I struggled with this book but I think it was so intense and I had previously being reading family sagas.
It is amazing how you can one day be in a rut dead end job leading to nowhere and then next think you are in the midst of crime.
Gritty and page turner