Jammy Dodger

Life is sweet for would-be bohemian Artie Conville. Safe at the helm of his subsidised magazine - with a cosy office paid for by the tax-payer - he's content to drift along quoting poetry, lingering over long lunches and flirting with the lovely Rosie McCann. The main thing is to keep the real world at bay.

Life is sweet for would-be bohemian Artie Conville. Safe at the helm of his subsidised magazine - with a cosy office paid for by the tax-payer - he''s content to drift along quoting poetry, lingering over long lunches and flirting with the lovely Rosie McCann. The main thing is to keep the real world - of nine-to-five jobs, mortgages and political violence - at bay. So when his cushy number is threatened, Artie hatches a cunning plan to keep the funds coming in. But events quickly spiral out of control and before long he is up to his ears in a bizarre fraud. Can he avert disaster? Will he get the girl? With a cast of characters that includes a gun-toting playwright, a jealous police chief, a drunken actor and a giant white rabbit, this is a rich and riotous tale about coming-of-age in 1980s Belfast; a novel that is by turns darkly ironic and laugh-out-loud funny.