First published in 2010, the novel focuses on drug addiction, alcoholism, homelessness, and dereliction.

The Irish Times literary critic Eileen Battersby called it a "magnificent" novel.

[2][3][4][5] The Daily Telegraph published a positive review by David Robson, who remarked that the "movingly told story is also an important book.

"[6] Around Christmas one year, alcoholic Robert John Radcliffe's body is found in his flat.

The novel traces, in a stream of consciousness style with occasional flashbacks, how his daughter Laura and her drug addict friends react as authorities investigate his death.