Lighthouse

Muscle

- Alan Trotter

( Paperback )

Buy£8.99

ONGLISTED FOR THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL FIRST BOOK AWARD

In a hard-boiled city of crooks, grifts and rackets lurk a pair of toughs: Box and _____. They’re the kind of men capable of extracting apologies and reparations, of teaching you a chilling lesson. They seldom think twice, and ask very few questions.

Until one night over the poker table, they encounter a pulp writer with wild ideas and an unscrupulous private detective, leading them into what is either a classic mystery, a senseless maze of corpses, or an inextricable fever dream . . .

Drunk on cinematic and literary influence, Muscle is a slice of noir fiction in collapse, a ceaselessly imaginative story of violence, boredom and madness.\ \ What a rare and accomplished debut this is - it teases out classic Noir riffs and set-ups but in a language sinuous enough, and with invention ripe enough, to make them feel new. – Kevin Barry\ \ A dazzling, muscular debut that is as gritty as it is absurd. Muscle manages to surprise at every turn. – Nikesh Shukla