Carol is a small-time cocaine dealer in 1987 London. She’s on her own with a young daughter, a good mother who is especially careful in her working life. For some punters, this involves being Simone. One of these customers is Phil, a financial analyst in the City who, with his longtime pal and fellow analyst Jack, fantasizes a cocaine futures market while on a coke binge. They look at it as they would look at any other commodity.
At the top of the wholesale business are Gordon Murray and his brothers, who have an “in” with the Drug Squad and are prepared to shop anyone to keep it that way, on top of the violence they use as and when needed.
When the cocaine futures market becomes a reality, Carol has an opportunity to go for the big deal that could get her out of the business altogether. Meanwhile, a stock market crash creates havoc, and a once-in-a lifetime hurricane sweeps across London, ripping down trees and the communication systems of the stock market itself. Carol must make her choice, as three very different worlds are about to collide.
Circa l’autore
John Barker was born in London in 1948. In 1972 he was convicted of conspiring to cause explosions in what was called the Angry Brigade trial. He served a ten-year prison sentence and is the author of Bending the Bars, a memoir of his prison time. He worked as a dustman and welder before being implicated in a conspiracy to import cannabis in 1986. In 1990 he was finally arrested and served a five-year sentence. Since then he has worked as writer and book indexer.