After the success of "Troubled Souls", Garth Ennis and John McCrea were approached by Crisis editor Steve MacManus to make a follow-up.

[2] Ennis would later note he and McCrea's fondness for the characters - "Ivor's optimism, Dougie's fully justified pessimism, and their inherent inability to organise the proverbial piss-up in a brewery" - and subsequently chronicled their attempts to become private detectives in Dicks.

[4] Instead he turns to Ivor, who has abandoned a short-lived career in the Ulster Volunteer Force after accidentally shooting himself in the foot and spending time in prison.

Nevertheless Dougie and Valerie marry, though Ivor's best man's speech is a drunken avalanche of bad taste before the pair leave for Torremolinos on their honeymoon.

[5] While Dougie is away - and dealing with an overdose of laxatives administered by his best man as a prank - Ivor finds himself left fulfilling Shuggie's poteen orders for local thugs.