Clubland

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After his last blag, Ged Brennan's had enough. He sees young kids making a name for themselves in Liverpool. Worse still, they're making big money. Ged wants some of that for himself and he thinks a man of his standing is entitled to it. But for a man of violence, he's incredibly moralistic. Ged has a righteous streak as wide as the Mersey and there's no way he's getting involved in clubs, drugs and topless bars. So when he receives an offer to take over the clubland empire of an executed gangster, he passes the parcel to his sex-addicted cousin Moby. Mistake. Ratter's common law widow, Margo, was brought up in Toxteth and foresaw the surge in property development that came in the wake of the riots. Margo is a regeneration visionary. But after Ratter's death she is told that her landmark project, a media village, is to be taken away from her. Mistake. The council's regeneration committee headhunt Ged Brennan to steer the final stages of Margo's development. He's read with righteous horror the scare stories about bold new plans to create a 'permissive' zone in clubland - a quarter where the sex trade operates openly and controlled use of narcotics is tolerated. The last thing on his mind is that it'll be anything to do with him. Mistake. The result is an intrigue of Machiavellian proportions, with friends and relatives plotting against each other and ready to fight - to the death - for what's theirs. When analysts spoke of Thatcher's Children, they weren't referring to the urchins who survived the riots. A hard-hitting story of sex and greed, Clubland is a tale of Thatcher's other Children - the ones she left behind.

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Kevin Sampson is the author of four novels, Awaydays, Powder, Leisure and, most recently, Outlaws.