A White Merc With Fins - Tapa dura

This is the funny, brash, unexpected story of a balding, thickening, disaffected twenty-eight-year-old who is reaping the rewards of his well-honed disaffection. Having spent the bulk of his twenties in the quasi-black market of London's temp agencies, he now finds himself not only without a career, but seriously without prospects. He's living in a shack in his sister's backyard, spending his evenings at the pub, and facing the dreaded slide from Lower M.C. (middle class) to the Un.C. (underclass). But disaffection does not preclude desire, and our narrator is very clear about what he wants: a certain woman known as Suzy the Black Widow and "the starting-blocks for a proper crack at living." In other words: a great deal of money.
Suzy seems quite happy to oblige; the money, however, is less forthcoming. Enlisting a small but diverse crowd of equally disaffected (or decidedly criminal) no-longer-youths, our hero comes up with the Plan to end all Plans: If the money won't come to him, he'll go to the money - straight to "one of the vaults of the people who own the world." It's the most ingeniously mindless bank heist in recent memory, but if everything falls into place, it will be far easier than finding a good job.

debut of a new voice in fiction, this is the funny, unexpected story of a balding, thickening 28-year-old who, having spent the bulk of his twenties avoiding a career in the quasi-black market of London's temp agencies, now finds himself not only without a job, but seriously without prospects. How he solves this problem is the action that propels this witty, acutely observant and captivating first novel.