Tangled Web UK Review July 2000
Low Life by
Mike Duff
pbk out June 00
(Crocus Books)
at £6.99
Rooftop Rafferty is a villain, living in the Sodom that is Central Manchester, growing up in Miles Platting which he describes as a kind of open asylum for the criminally insane. Rooftop is always on the look out for a nice little earner, trying to stay one step ahead of the Dirty in a life that is an endless circle of thieving, drinking and sleeping.
Low Life is Rooftop’s breakneck account of an endless series of scams and swindles played out in the mean streets and maisonettes, precincts and pubs of Manchester and culminating in his adventures on Red Nose Day in Bolton. Foul-mouthed in the extreme, ignoble, desperate and funny, Rooftop and his co-conspirators are involved in kiting - stealing cheques and credit cards, using them to buy goods then returning the goods for refunds.
Mike Duff’s comic odyssey is inventive and pacy and was joint winner of the Crocus North West Novel Competition in 1999. It’s a no-holds barred, in-yer-face account of an irrepressible rip-off merchant that sheds a bright and bitter light on the seedy manoeuvrings of Manchester’s small time criminals. Peppered with wide-ranging literary references and a substantial nod in the direction of Dickens, Low Life is an often shocking and at times unexpectedly moving testimony to life on the wrong side of the tracks in Manchester.
Manchester Evening News 30/6/00
(
Cath Staincliffe
- Author of the highly acclaimed Sal Kilkenny Mysteries set on the Mean Streets of Manchester)
