LITTLE MOSCOW - Tapa blanda

An acutely intelligent writer with a style that can deal with murder and rape, but is also capable of deft comedy * Independent * Mick Scully's interconnecting stories are poignant, pacy vignettes that merge into one brilliant portrait of a city on the make . . . Somebody buy him a drink. * Guardian * You want it down and dirty? Up the arse or right between the eyes? Then Scully's your man * John Harvey * Mick Scully is a dark new talent. Little Moscow is full of shocking stories with characters who are disturbingly familiar * Jake Arnott * Scully initiates profound moral investigations into the lives of his characters, whose dramas evolve from the villains' pubs, canal towpaths and deprived housing estates of the West Midlands * Nicholas Royle *

The Little Moscow, a shady basement bar at the side of the Grand Union canal in Birmingham, stamping ground for thieves, gangsters and conmen - plus some of the city's more glamorous creatures. Blue-skinned Nathan, a hardknock tattooist, refuses to pay Crawford's protection racket. Nearby, a refugee from Middle Eastern wars finds a body hanging from a lamppost and becomes entangled with a goodtime girl called Veronica and an apartment decorated with abstract art. Roles get reversed, debts get claimed and colours collide - while two would-be Andy Warhols make away with incriminating evidence.