Crack, Apple & Pop : Saira Viola
Tony is a handsome young boxer is forced into a life of crime after suffering a vicious blow in the ring.
Seduced by the glitz and glamour of London and mentored by charismatic gang lord Don March he rises rapidly up the crime ladder until he spies an opportunity to start a semi-legit Natural Highs business.
Bankrolled by an eccentric British dandy and accompanied by a cast of starry misfits including a 3ft tall blue-haired money man, an Etonian drug mule, two dominatrix debt collectors, a dodgy lawyer and a host of demi-celebs, Tony carves out a roll for himself in a city where money creates its’ own morality.
All seems to be going well until in the shadows, a Bollywood mobster threatens to derail their plans.
Chaos ensues, of course it does – wonderful, beautiful, visceral chaos.
The deft wit of Hammett meets the vivid poetics of Chandler: Crack Apple and Pop is slick smart and razor sharp. A gritty and sometimes metafictive slice of London noir.
A city of artful dodgers, yardie gangsters, kinky aristos, cocaine dusted starlets and social thrill seekers where everyone’s hustling and everyone’s getting high.
Whether it’s law, finance, the music biz, or the boxing ring: money is king. And only the ones prepared to risk everything will survive...
"A great amount has been done in literature over the years but every now and then someone comes along and shows us a completely different approach to the ancient art of the scribe. So hail Saira Viola and discover her twisted and beautiful imagination. Literature needs Saira Viola. Her writing is sharp direct and gripping.” -Benjamin Zephaniah
"A fresh faced voice to herald in the apocalypse. Posers beware. This is the real deal." -Jonathan Shaw
"Injecting musical prose into a dying genre and one sorely needing a shot in the arm.What Viola has proven is the great novel is not incompatible with virtuosic poetics." -James Browning Kepple
"I enjoyed this piece's in-your-face quality." -Robin Wyatt Dunn
"Guy Ritchie meets Martin Amis.......stunning." -Betsy Reavley
"A dirty, delinquent satire with plenty of scabrous humour, but it also holds up a mirror to a society obsessed with the wrong kind of celebrity. .....Jukebox is a compelling crime caper." -Crime Fiction Lover
"Awitty riotous story populated by larger-than-life characters" -The Clerkenwell Post
"Unique – it overflows with pazazz." - Heathcote Williams, International Times