Trouble Man
By (Author) Tom Benn
Vintage Publishing
Vintage
15th January 2015
8th January 2015
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
Modern and contemporary fiction: general and literary
823.92
Paperback
336
Width 129mm, Height 198mm, Spine 21mm
235g
Meet Bane. Meet his beautiful mistress, teenage son, and the violent underworld to which he's increasingly numbed. It's Manchester, at the close of the millennium, and Henry Bane is now manager of an exclusive nightclub. He has a beautiful mistress, a teenage son, and is making moves in a violent underworld to which he is increasingly numbed. When a young girl is found tortured and unwilling to go to the police, Bane offers to help, and finds horror in a feral community with a respectable veneer. But, by meddling, he ends up endangering those he wants to protect. Not only that, he also manages to incur the wrath of an ailing ganglord, and soon finds himself tangled in a penthouse robbery and an underground boxing match. Trouble Man takes Bane through a hell, perhaps of his own making, where he is pushed to his limit - and the trouble only gets closer to home.
Frenetic page-turning tension and mystery... Sometimes nasty, sometimes funny, sometimes knowing in its comment about the rampant misogyny that pervades the underworld. It's a great read, dark and filled with pace. -- Nikesh Shukla * We Love This Book *
Seamy, tough and reeking with authenticity, it's grimly fascinating. -- Deirdre O'Brien * Sunday Mirror *
Ultra-noir depicts the criminal underbelly of Manchester with force and style. Good story, superior characterisation, convincingly bleak atmosphere. -- Marcel Berlins * The Times *
Exhilarating prose, gut-wrenching violence and plenty of soul in dystopian Manchester. -- Cath Staincliffe
It shines a light on Manchesters violent underworld, as a nightclub owner finds himself dragged into ever-more-depraved places amid a backdrop of murders. * Mr Hyde *
Tom Benn was born in 1987, and grew up in Stockport. He is a graduate of the UEA Creative Writing MA and was the recipient of the 2009 Malcolm Bradbury bursary. His first novel, The Doll Princess, was shortlisted for the 2012 Dylan Thomas Prize and the Portico Prize, and longlisted for the Crime Writers' Association's John Creasey Dagger. Chamber Music was published in 2013.